1 


mmmmm 


ILLUSTRATED 
BY  OJ-TAYLo; 


LIBRARY 

UW!»          1TY  OF 

CA.U       RNIA 

S*N  DI€GO      j 


MORE    "SHORT    SIXES." 


A\PRE  SHORT 
BYH'CBUNNER- 


ILLUSTRATED  BY  CJ  TAYLOR- 


KEPPLER  B  SCHWARZMANNI- PUBLISHERS, 
PUCK  BUILDING-NEW  YORK-  MDCCCXCIV-- 


Copyright,  1894,  by  KEPPLER  &  SCHWARZMANN. 


TO 
A.     L.    B. 


Contents. 

Page. 

The  Cumbersome  Horse I 

Mr.  Vincent  Egg  and  the  Wage  of  Sin 22 

The  Ghoollah 46 

Cutwater  of  Seneca 68 

Mr.  Wick's  Aunt 84 

What  Mrs.  Fortescue  Did no 

"The  Man  with  the  Pink  Pants" 134 

The  Third  Figure  in  the  Cotillion 156 

"  Samantha  Boom-de-ay" 180 

My  Dear  Mrs.   Billington 214 


THE   CUMBERSOME    HORSE. 


THE     CUMBERSOME     HORSE. 


T  is  not  to  be  denied  that  a 
sense  of  disappointment  per 
vaded  Mr.  Britnmington's  be 
ing  in  the  hour  of  his  first 
acquaintance  with  the  isolated 
farm-house  which  he  had  just 
purchased,  sight  unseen,  after  long 
epistolary  negotiations  with  Mr.  Hiram  Skinner, 
postmaster,  carpenter,  teamster  and  real  estate 
agent  of  Bethel  Corners,  who  was  now  driving 
him  to  his  new  domain. 

Perhaps  the  feeling  was  of  a  mixed  origin. 
Indian  Summer  was  much  colder  up  in  the  Penn 
sylvania  hills  than  he  had  expected  to  find  it ;  and 
the  hills  themselves  were  much  larger  and  bleaker 
and  barer,  and  far  more  indifferent  in  their  de 
meanor  toward  him,  than  he  had  expected  to  find 
them.  Then  Mr.  Skinner  had  been  something  of 
a  disappointment,  himself.  He  was  too  familiar 
with  his  big,  knobby,  red  hands;  too  furtive  with 
his  small,  close-set  eyes;  too  profuse  of  tobacco- 
juice,  and  too  raspingly  loquacious.  And  certainly 
the  house  itself  did  not  meet  his  expectations 
when  he  first  saw  it,  standing  lonely  and  desolate 
in  its  ragged  meadows  of  stubble  and  wild-grass 
on  the  unpleasantly  steep  mountain-side. 


flfoore  "Sbort  Sijes." 


And  yet  Mr.  Skinner  had  accomplished  for 
him  the  desire  of  his  heart.  He  had  always  said 
that  when  he  should  come  into  his  money  —  forty 
thousand  dollars  from  a  maiden  aunt  —  he  would 
quit  forever  his  toilsome  job  of  preparing  Young 
Gentlemen  for  admission  to  the 
Larger  Colleges  and  Universities, 
and  would  devote  the  next 
few  years  to  writing  his 
i  long-projected  "  His 
tory  of  Prehistoric 
Man."  And  to  go 
about  this  task  he 
had  always  said  that 
he  would  go  and  live 
in  perfect  solitude — 
that  is,  all  by  himself 
and  a  chorewoman  — 
in  a  secluded  farm 
house,  situated  upon 
the  southerly  slope  of 
some  high  hill  —  an  old 
farm-house — a  Revolution 
ary  farm-house,  if  possible  — 
a  delightful,  long,  low,  rambling  farm-house — a 
farm-house  with  floors  of  various  levels  —  a  farm 
house  with  crooked  Stairs,  and  with  nooks  and 
corners  and  quaint  cupboards  —  this  —  this  had 
been  the  desire  of  Mr.  Bfimmington's  heart. 

Mr.  Brimmington,  when  he  came  into  his 
money  at  the  age  of  forty-five,  fixed  on  Pike 
County,  Pennsylvania,  as  a  mountainous  country 
of  good  report.  A  postal-guide  informed  him  that 
Mr.  Skinner  was  the  postmaster  of  Bethel  Corners ; 
so,  Mr.  Brimmington  wrote  to  Mr.  Skinner. 


^    tTbe  Cumbersome  1bor$e.    -^ 

The  correspondence  between  Mr.  Brimming- 
ton  and  Mr.  Skinner  was  long  enough  and  full 
enough  to  have  settled  a  treaty  between  two  na 
tions.  It  ended  by  a  discovery  of  a  house  lonely 
enough  and  aged  enough  to  fill  the  bill.  Several 
hundred  dollars'  worth  of  repairs  were  needed  to 
inake  it  habitable,  and  Mr.  Skinner  was  employed 
to  make  thenv  Toward  the  close  of  a  cold  No* 
veinber  day,  Mr.  Brimmington  saw  his  purchase 
for  the  first  time. 

In  spite  of  his  disappointment,  he  had  to 
admit,  as  he  walked  around  the  place  in  the  early 
twilight,  that  it  was  just  what  he  had  bargained 
for.  The  situation,  the  dimensions,  the  exposure, 
were  all  exactly  what  had  been  stipulated.  About 
its  age  there  could  be  no  question.  Internally,  its 
irregularity — indeed,  its  utter  failure  to  conform 
to  any  known  rules  of  domestic  architecture  — 
surpassed  Mr.  Brimmington's  wildest  expectations. 
It  had  stairs  eighteen  inches  wide;  it  had  rooms 
of  strange  shapes  and  sizes ;  it  had  strange,  shal 
low  cupboards  in  strange  places;  it  had  no  hall 
ways;  its  windows  were  of  odd  design,  and  whoso 
wanted  variety  in  floors  could  find  it  there.  And 
along  the  main  wall  of  Mr.  Brimmington's  study 
there  ran  a  structure  some  three  feet  and  a  half 
high  and  nearly  as  deep,  which  Mr.  Skinner  con 
fidently  assured  him  was  used  in  old  times  as  a 
wall-bench  or  a  dresser,  indifferently.  "You  might 
think,"  said  Mr.  Skinner,  "that  all  that  space  in 
side  there  was  jest  wasted;  but  it  ain't  so.  Them 
seats  is  jest  filled  up  inside  with  braces  so  's  that 
you  can  set  on  them  good  and  solid."  And  then 
Mr.  Skinner  proudly  called  attention  to  the  two 
coats  of  gray  paint  spread  over  the  entire  side  of 


the  house,  walls,  ceilings  and  woodwork,  blending 
the  original  portions  and  the  Skinner  restorations 
in  one  harmonious,  homogenous  whole. 

Mr.  Skinner  might  have  told  him  that  this' 
variety  of  gray  paint  is  highly  popular  in  some 
rural  districts,  and  is  made  by  mixing  lamp-black 
and  ball-blue  with  a  low  grade  of  white  lead.  But 
he  did  not  say  it ;  and  he  drove  away  as  soon  as 
he  conveniently  could,  after  formally  introducing 
him  to  Mrs.  Sparhawk,  a  gaunt,  stern-faced,  silent, 
elderly  woman.  Mrs.  Sparhawk  was  to  take 
charge  of  his  bachelor  establishment  during  the 
day  time.  Mrs.  Sparhawk  cooked  him  a  meal  for 
which  she  very  properly  apologized.  Then  she 


*p    tlbe  Cumbersome  Iborse.    ^ 

returned  to  her  kitchen  to  "clean  up."  Mr.  Brim- 
mington  went  to  the  front  door,  partly  to  look  out 
upon  his  property,  and  partly  to  turn  his  back  on 
the  gray  paint.  There  were  no  steps  before  the 
front  door,  but  a  newly-graded  mound  or  earth 
work  about  the  size  of  a  half- hogshead.  He 
looked  out  upon  his  apple -orchard,  which  was 
further  away  than  he  had  expected  to  find  it.  It 
had  been  out  of  bearing  for  ten  years,  but  this 
Mr.  Brimmington  did  not  know.  He  did  know, 
however,  that  the  whole  outlook  was  distinctly 
dreary. 

As  he  stood  there  and  gazed  out  into  the 
twilight,  two  forms  suddenly  approached  him. 
Around  one  corner  of  the  house  came  Mrs.  Spar- 
hawk  on  her  way  home.  Around  the  other  came 
an  immensely  tall,  whitish  shape,  lumbering  for 
ward  with  a  heavy  tread.  Before  he  knew  it,  it 
had"  scrambled  up  the  side  of  his  mound  with  a 
clumsy,  ponderous  rush,  and  was  thrusting  itself 
directly  upon  him  when  he  uttered  so  lusty  a  cry 
of  dismay  that  it  fell  back  startled ;  and,  wheeling 
about  a  great  long  body  that  swayed  on  four 
misshapen  legs,  it  pounded  off  in  the  direction  it 
had  come  from,  and  disappeared  around  the 
corner.  Mr.  Brimmington  turned  to  Mrs.  Spar- 
hawk  in  disquiet  and  indignation. 

"Mrs.  Sparhawk,"  he  demanded;  "what  is 
that  ?  " 

"It  's  a  horse,"  said  Mrs.  Sparhawk,  not  at 
all  surprised,  for  she  knew  that  Mr.  Brimmington 
was  from  the  city.  "They  hitch  'em  to  wagons 
here." 

"I  know  it  is  a  horse,  Mrs.  Sparhawk," 
Mr.  Brimmington  rejoined  with  some  asperity; 


"Sbort  Sixes." 


"but  whose  horse  is  it,  and  what  is  it  doing  on 
my  premises  ?  " 

"I  don't  rightly  know  whose  horse  it  is," 
replied  Mrs.  Sparhawk;  "the  man  that  used  to 
own  it,  he  's  dead  now." 


"But  what,"  inquired  Mr.  Brimmington 
sternly,  "is  the  animal  doing  here?" 

"I  guess  he  b'longs  here,"  Mrs.  Sparhawk 
said.  She  had  a  cold,  even,  impersonal  way  of 
speaking,  as  though  she  felt  that  her  safest  course 
in  life  was  to  confine  herself  strictly  to  such  state 
ments  of  fact  as  might  be  absolutely  required 
of  her. 

"But,  my  good  woman,"  replied  Mr.  Brim- 

6 


•y-   Gbe  Cumbersome  Iborge.    ^ 

mington,  in  bewilderment,  "how  can  that  be? 
The  animal  can't  certainly  belong  on  my  property 
unless  he  belongs  to  me,  and  that  animal  certainly 
is  not  mine." 

Seeing  him  so  much  at  a  loss  and  so  greatly 
disturbed  in  mind,  Mrs.  Sparhawk  relented  a  little 
from  her  strict  rule  of  life,  and  made  an  attempt 
at  explanation. 

"  He  b'longed  to  the  man  who  owned  this 
place  first  off;  and  I  don'  know  for  sure,  but  I  've 
heard  tell  that  he  fixed  it  some  way  so  's  that  the 
horse  would  sort  of  go  with  the  place." 

Mr.  Brimmington  felt  irritation  rising  within 
him. 

"  But,"  he  said,  "  it  's  preposterous !  There 
was  no  such  consideration  in  the  deed.  No  such 
thing  can  be  done,  Mrs.  Sparhawk,  without  my 
acquiescence ! " 

"  I  don't  know  nothin'  about  that,"  said 
Mrs.  Sparhawk ;  "  what  I  do  know  is,  the  place 
has  changed  hands  often  enough  since,  and  the 
horse  has  always  went  with  the  place." 

There  was  an  unsettled  suggestion  in  the 
first  part  of  this  statement  of  Mrs.  Sparhawk  that 
gave  a  shock  to  Mr.  Brimmington's  nerves.  He 
laughed  uneasily. 

"  Oh,  er,  yes !  I  see.  Very  probably  there 
's  been  some  understanding.  I  suppose  I  am  to 
regard  the  horse  as  a  sort  of  lien  upon  the  place 
—  a  —  a  —  what  do  they  call  it  ?  —  an  incum- 
brance !  Yes,"  he  repeated,  more  to  himself  than 
to  Mrs.  Sparhawk ;  "  an  incumbrance.  I  've  got 
a  gentleman's  country  place  with  a  horse  in- 
cumbrant." 

Mrs.  Sparhawk  heard  him,  .however, 

r 


-y   d&ore  "Sbort  Sixes."    ^ 

"It  is  a  sorter  cumbersome  horse,"  she  said. 
And  without  another  word  she  gathered  her 
shawl  about  her  shoulders,  and  strode  off  into 
the  darkness. 

Mr.  Brimmington  turned  back  into  the 
house,  and  busied  himself  with  a  vain  attempt 
to  make  his  long -cherished  furniture  look  at 
home  in  his  new  leaden  -hued  rooms.  The  un 
grateful  task  gave  him  the  blues;  and,  after  an 
hour  of  it,  he  went  to  bed. 

He  was  dreaming  leaden-hued  dreams,  op 
pressed,  uncomfortable  dreams,  when  a  peculiarly 
weird  and  uncanny  series  of  thumps  on  the  front 
of  the  house  awoke  him  with  a  start.  The 
thumps  might  have  been  made  by  a  giant  with 
a  weaver's  beam,  but  he  must  have  been  a  very 
drunken  giant  to  group  his  thumps  in  such  a 
disorderly  parody  of  time  and  sequence. 

Mr.  Brimmington  had  too  guileless  and  clean 
a  heart  to  be  the  prey  of  undefined  terrors.  He 
rose,  ran  to  the  window  and  opened  it.  The 
moonlight  lit  up  the  raw,  frosty  landscape  with 
a  cold,  pale,  diffused  radiance,  and  Mr.  Brim 
mington  could  plainly  see  right  below  him  the 
cumbersome  horse,  cumbersomely  trying  to  main 
tain  a  footing  on  the  top  of  the  little  mound 
before  the  front  door.  When,  for  a  fleeting  in 
stant,  he  seemed  to  think  that  he  had  succeeded 
in  this  feat,  he  tried  to  bolt  through  the  door. 
As  soon,  however,  as  one  of  his  huge  knees 
smote  the  panel,  his  hind  feet  lost  their  grip  on 
the  soft  earth,  and  he  wabbled  back  down  the 
incline,  where  he  stood  shaking  and  quivering, 
until  he  could  muster  wind  enough  for  another 
attempt  to  make  a  catapult  of  himself.  The  veil- 


like  illumination  of  the  night,  which  turned  all 
things  else  to  a  dirh,  silvery  gray,  could  not  hide 
the  scars  and  bruises  and  worn  places  that  spot 
ted  the  animal's  great,  gaunt,  distorted  frame. 
His  knees  were  as  big  as  a  man's  head.  His 
feet  were  enormous.  His  joints  stood  out  from 
his  shriveled  carcass  like  so  many  pine  knots. 
Mr.  Brimmington  gazed  at  him,  fascinated,  hor 
rified,  until  a  rush  more  desperate  and  uncertain 
than  the  rest  threatened  to  break  his  front 
door  in. 

"Hi!"  shrieked  Mr.  Brimmington;  "go 
away ! " 

It  was  the  horse's  turn  to  get  frightened. 
Q 


V   /Ibore  "Sbort  Sijes."    ^ 

He  lifted  his  long,  coffin-shaped  head  toward 
Mr.  Brimmington's  window,  cast  a  sort  of  blind, 
cross-eyed,  ineffectual  glance  at  him,  and  with  a 
long-drawn,  wheezing,  cough-choked  whinny  he 
backed  down  the  mound,  got  himself  about, 
end  for  end,  with  such  extreme  awkwardness 
that  he  hurt  one  poor  knee  on  a  hitching-post 
that  looked  to  be  ten  feet  out  of  his  way,  and 
limped  off  to  the  rear  of  the  house. 

The  sound  of  that  awful,  rusty,  wind-broken 
whinny  haunted  Mr.  Brirnmington  all  the  rest  of 
that  night.  It  was  like  the  sound  of  an  orches 
trion  run  down,  or  of  a  man  who  is  utterly  tired 
of  the  whooping  -  cough  and  does  n't  care  who 
knows  it. 

The  next  morning  was  bright  and  sunshiny, 
and  Mr.  Brimmington  awoke  in  a  more  cheerful 
frame  of  mind  than  he  would  naturally  have  ex 
pected  to  find  himself  in  after  his  perturbed 
night.  He  found  himself  inclined  to  make  the 
best  of  his  purchase  and  to  view  it  in  as  favor 
able  a  light  as  possible.  He  went  outside  and 
looked  at  it  from  various  points  of  view,  trying 
to  fino)  and  if  possible  to  dispose  of  the  reason 
for  the  vague  sense  of  disappointment  which  he 
felt,  having  come  into  possession  of  the  rambling 
pld  farm  T  house,  which  he  had  so  much  desired. 

He  decide'd,  after  a  long  and  careful  in 
spection,  that  it  was  the  proportions  of  the  house 
that  were  wrong.  They  were  certainly  peculiar. 
Jt  was  singularly  high  between  joints  jn  the  first 
story,  and  singularly  low  in  the  second.  In  spite 
of  its  irregularity  within,  it  was  uncompromis 
ingly  square  on  the  outside.  There  was  some 
thing  queer  about  the  pitch  of  its  roof,  and  \\ 


Cumbersome  Iborse.    ^ 

seemed  strange  that  so  modest  a  structure  with 
no  hallway  whatever  should  have  vestibule  win 
dows  on  each  side  of  its  doors,  both  front  and 
rear. 

But  here  an  idea  flashed  into  Mr.  Brim- 
mington's  mind  that  in  an  instant  changed  him 
from  a  carping  critic  to  a  delighted  discoverer. 
He  was  living  in  a  Block  House!  Yes;  that 
explained  —  that  accounted  for  all  the  strange 
ness  of  its  architecture.  In  in  instant  he  found 
his  purchase  invested  with  a  beautiful  glamour 
of  adventurous  association.  Here  was  the  stout 
and  well  -  planned  refuge  to  which  the  grave 
settlers  of  an  earlier  day  ha'd  fled  to  guard 
themselves  against  the  attack  of  the  vindictive 
red-skins.  He  saw  it  all.  A  moat,  crossed  no 
doubt  by  draw -bridges,  had  surrounded  the 
building.  In  the  main  room  below,  the  women 
and  children  had  huddled  while  their  courage 
ous  defenders  had  poured  a  leaden  hail  upon 
the  foe  through  loop-holes  in  the  upper  story. 
He  walked  around  the  house  for  some  time, 
looking  for  loop-holes. 

So  pleased  was  Mr.  Brimrnington  at  his 
theory  that  the  morning  passed  rapidly  away, 
and  when  he  looked  at  his  watch  he  was  sur 
prised  to  find  that  it  was  nearly  noon.  Then 
he  remembered  that  Mr.  Skinner  had  promised 
to  call  on  him  at  eleven,  to  make  anything  right 
that  was  not  right.  Glancing  over  the  land 
scape  he  saw  Mr.  Skinner  approaching  by  a 
circuitous  track.  He  was  apparently  following 
the  course  of  a  snake  fence  which  he  could 
readily  have  climbed.  This  seemed  strange,  as 
ftis  way  across  the  pasture  land  was  seemingly 
ff 


unimpeded.  Thinking  of  the  pasture  land  made 
Mr.  Brimmington  think  of  the  white  horse,  and 
casting  his  eyes  a  little  further  down  the  hill 
he  saw  that  animal  slowly  and  painfully  steer 
ing  a  parallel  course  to  Mr.  Skinner,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  fence.  Mr.  Skinner  went  out 
of  sight  behind  a  clump  of  trees,  and  when  he 
arrived  it  was  not  upon  the  side  of-  the  house 
where  Mr.  Brimmington  had  expected  to  see 
him  appear. 

As  they  were  about  to  enter  the  house  Mr. 
Brimmington  noticed  the  marks  of  last  night's 
attack  upon  his  front  door,  and  he  spoke  to 
Mr.  Skinner  about  the  horse. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Skinner,  with  much 
ingenuousness;  "that  horse.  I  was  meaning  to 
speak  to  you  about  that  horse.  Fact  is,  I  've 
kinder  got  that  horse  on  my  hands,  and  if  it  's 
no  inconvenience  to  you,  I  'd  like  to  leave  him 
where  he  is  for  a  little  while." 


Cumbersome  Ibcrse. 


"  But  it  would  be  very  inconvenient,  indeed, 
Mr.  Skinner,"  said  the  new  owner  of  the  house. 
"The  animal  is  a  very  unpleasant  object;  and, 
moreover,  it  attempted  to  break  into  my  front 
door  last  night." 

Mr.  Skinner's  face  darkened.  "Sho!"  he 
said ;  "  you  don't  mean  to  tell  me  that  ?  " 

But  Mr.  Brimmington  did  mean  to  tell  him 
that,  and  Mr.  Skinner  listened  with  a  scowl  of 
unconcealed  perplexity  and  annoyance.  He  bit 
his  lip  reflectively  for  a  minute  or  two  before 
he  spoke. 

"  Too   bad  you  was  disturbed,"  he  said   at 
length.      "  You  '11  have  to  keep 
the  bars  up  to  that  meadow 
and  then  it  won't  hap 
pen  again." 

"  But,  indeed, 
it  must  not  happen 
again,"  said  Mr. 
Brimmington;  "the 
horse  must  be 
taken  away." 

"  Well,  you 
see  it  's  this 
way,  friend,"  re 
turned  Mr.  Skin 
ner,  with  a 
rather  ugly  air 
of  decision;  "I 
really  ain't  got 
no  choice  in  the 
matter.  I  'd  like  to  oblige  you,  and  if  I  'd  known 
as  far  back  that  you  would  have  objected  to  the 
animal  I  'd  have  had  him  took  somewheres.  But, 

T3 


"Sbort  SijC8."    ^ 

as  it  is,  there  ain't  no  such  a  thing  as  getting  that 
there  horse  off  this  here  place  till  the  frost 's  out 
of  the  ground.  You  can  see  for  yourself  that  that 
horse,  the  condition  he  's  in  now,  could  n't  no 
more  go  up  nor  down  this  hill  than  he  could  fly. 
Why,  I  came  over  here  a-foot  this  morning  on 
purpose  not  to  take  them  horses  of  mine  over 
this  road  again.  It  can't  be  done,  sir." 

"Very  well,"  suggested  Mr.  Brimmington; 
"  kill  the  horse." 

"  I  ain't  killin'  no  horses,"  said  Mr.  Skinner. 
"You  may  if  you  like;  but  I  'd  advise  you  not 
to.  There  's  them  as  might  n't  like  it." 

"  Well,  let  them  come  and  take  their  horse 
away,  then,"  said  Mr.  Brimmington. 

"Just  so,"  assented  Mr.  Skinner.  "It  's 
they  who  are  concerned  in  the  horse,  and  they 
have  a  right  to  take  him  away.  I  would  if  I 
was  any  ways  concerned,  but  I  ain't."  Here  he 
turned  suddenly  upon  Mr.  Brimmington.  "  Why, 
look  here,"  he  said,  "  you  ain't  got  the  heart  to 
turn  that  there  horse  out  of  that  there  pasture 
where  he  's  been  for  fifteen  years!  It  won't  do 
you  no  sorter  hurt  to  have  him  stay  there  till 
Spring.  Put  the  bars  up,  and  he  won't  trouble 
you  no  more." 

"  But,"  objected  Mr.  Brimmington,  weakly, 
"  even  if  the  poor  creature  were  not  so  unsightly, 
he  could  not  be  left  alone  all  Winter  in  that 
pasture  without  shelter." 

"  That  's  just  where  you  're  mistaken,"  Mr. 
Skinner  replied,  tapping  his  interlocutor  heavily 
upon  the  shoulder;  "he  don't  mind  it  not  one 
mite.  See  that  shed  there  ?  "  And  he  pointed  to 
a  few  wind-racked  boards  in  the  corner  of  the 

r* 


^    ftbe  Cumbersome  1bor0e\    ^ 

lot.  "  There  's  boss-shelter ;  and  as  for  feed, 
why  there  's  feed  enough  in  that  meadow  for 
two  such  as  him." 

In  the  end,  Mr.  Brirnmington,  being  utterly 
ignorant  of  the  nature  and  needs  of  horse-flesh, 
was  over-persuaded,  and  he  consented  to  let  the 
unfortunate  white  horse  remain  in  his  pasture  lot 
to  be  the' sport  of  the  Winter's  chill  and  bitter 
cruelty.  Then  he  and  Mr.  Skinner  talked  about 
some  new  paint. 


It  was  the  dead  waist  and  middle  of  Mr. 
Brimmington's  third  night  in  his  new  house, 
when  he  was  absolutely  knocked  out  of  a  calm 
and  peaceful  slumber  by  a  crash  so  appalling  that 
he  at  first  thought  that  the  side  of  the  mountain 
had  slid  down  upon  his  dwelling.  This  was  fol 
lowed  by  other  crashes,  thumps,  the  tearing  of 
woodwork  and  various  strange  and  grewsome 
noises.  Whatever  it  might  be,  Mr.  Brirnmington 
felt  certain  that  it  was  no  secret  midnight 
marauder,  and  he  hastened  to  the  eighteen-inch 
stairway  without  even  waiting  to  put  on  a  dress 
ing-gown.  A  rush  of  cold  air  came  up  from 
below,  and  he  had  no  choice  but  to  scuttle  back 
for  a  bath-robe  and  a  candle  while  the  noises  con 
tinued,  and  the  cold  air  floated  all  over  the  house. 

There  was  no  difficulty  in  locating  the 
sounds.  Mr.  Brimmington  presented  himself  at 
the  door  of  the  little  kitchen,  pulled  it  open, 
and,  raising  the  light  above  his  head,  looked 
in.  The  rush  of  wind  blew  out  his  light,  but 
not  before  he  had  had  time  to  see  that  it  was 
rj 


the  white  horse  that  was  in  the  kitchen,  and  that 
he  had  gone  through  the  floor. 

Subsequent  investigation  proved  that  the 
horse  had  come  in  through  the  back  door, 
carrying  that  and  its  two  vestibule  windows 
with  him,  and  that  he  had  first  trampled  and 
then  churned  the  thin  floor  into  match-wood. 
He  was  now  reposing  on  his  stomach,  with  his 
legs  hanging  down  between  the  joists  into  the 
hollow  under  the  house  —  for  there  was  no  cellar. 
He  looked  over  his  shoulder  at  his  host  and 
emitted  his  blood-curdling  wail. 


•^    ttbe  Cumbersome  Iboree.    ^ 

"My   Gracious!"   said   Mr.    Brimmington. 

That  night  Mr.  Brimmington  sat  up  with 
the  horse,  both  of  them  wrapped,  as  well  as 
Mr.  Brimmington  could  do  it,  in  bed-clothes. 
There  is  not  much  you  can  do  with  a  horse 
when  you  have  to  sit  up  with  him  under  such 
circumstances.  The  thought  crossed  Mr.  Brim- 
mington's  mind  of  reading  to  him,  but  he  dis 
missed  it. 

* 
*  * 

In  the  interview  the  next  day,  between 
Mr.  Brimmington  and  Mr.  Skinner,  the  aggres 
siveness  was  all  on  Mr.  Brimmington'B  side,  and 
Mr.  Skinner  was  meek  and  wore  an  anxious 
expression.  Mr.  Brimmington  had,  however, 
changed  his  point  of  view.  He  now  realized 
that  sleeping  out  of  Winter  nights  might  be  un 
pleasant,  even  painful  to  an  aged  and  rheumatic 
horse.  And,  although  he  had  cause  of  legiti 
mate  complaint  against  the  creature,  he  could 
no  longer  bear  to  think  of  killing  the  animal 
with  whom  he  had  shared  that  cold  and  silent 
vigil.  He  commissioned  Mr.  Skinner  to  build 
for  the  brute  a  small  but  commodious  lodging, 
and  to  provide  a  proper  stock  of  provender  — 
commissions  which  Mr.  Skinner  gladly  and  hum 
bly  accepted.  As  to  the  undertaking  to  get  the 
horse  out  of  his  immediate  predicament,  how 
ever,  Mr.  Skinner  absolutely  refused  to  touch 
the  job.  "  That  horse  don't  like  me,"  said  Mr. 
Skinner;  "I  know  he  don't;  I  seen  it  in  his 
eyes  long  ago.  If  you  like,  I  '11  send  you  two 
or  three  men  and  a  block-and-tackle,  and  they 
can  get  him  out ;  but  not  me ;  no,  sir ! " 


"Sbort 

Mr.  Skinner  devoted  that  day  to  repairing 
damages,  and  promised  oh  the  morrow  to  begin 
the  building  of  the  little  barn.  Mr.  Brimmington 
was  glad  there  was  going  to  be  no  greater  delay, 
when,  early  in  the  evening,  the  sociable  white 
horse  tried  to  put  his  front  feet  through  the  study 
window. 

But  of  all  the  noises  that  startled  Mr.  Brim 
mington,  in  the  first  week  of  his  sojourn  in  the 
farm-house,  the  most  alarming,  awakened  him 
about  eight  o'clock  of  the  following  morning. 
Hurrying  to  his  study,  he  gazed  in  wonder  upon 
a  scene  unparalleled  even  in  the  History  of 
Prehistoric  Man.  The  boards  had  been  ripped 
off  the  curious  structure  which  was  supposed  to 
have  served  the  hardy  settlers  for  a  wall-bench 
and  a  dresser,  indifferently.-  This  revealed  another 
structure  in  the  form  of  a  long  crib  or  bin,  within 
which,  apparently  trying  to  back  out  through  the 
wall,  stood  Mr.  Skinner,  holding  his  tool-box  in 
front  of  him  as  if  to  shield  himself,  and  fairly 
yelping  with  terror.  The  front  door  was  off  its 
hinges,  and  there  stood  Mrs.  Sparhawk  wielding 
a  broom  to  keep  out  the  white  horse,  who  was 
viciously  trying  to  force  an  entrance.  Mr.  Brim 
mington  asked  what  it  all  meant;  and  Mrs.  Spar- 
hawk,  turning  a  desperate  face  upon  him,  spoke 
with  the  vigor  of  a  woman  who  has  kept  silence 
too  long. 

"It  means,"  she  said,  "that  this  here  house 
of  yours  is  this  here  horse's  stable ;  and  the  horse 
knows  it ;  and  that  there  was  the  horse's  manger. 
This  here  horse  was  old  Colonel  Josh  Pincus's 
regimental  horse,  and  so  provided  for  in  his  will ; 
and  this  here  man  Skinner  was  to  have  the  caring 

18 


^   tlbe  Cumbersome  Iborse.    ^ 

of  him  until  he  should  die  a  natural  death,  and 
then  he  was  to  have  this  stable ;  and  till  then  the 
stable  was  left  to  the  horse.  And  now  he  's 
taken  the  stable  away  from  the  horse,  and  patched 
it  up  into  a  dwelling-house  for  a  fool  from  New 
York  City;  and  the  horse  don't  like  it;  and  the 
horse  don't  like  Skinner.  And  when  he  come 
back  to  git  that  manger  for  your  barn,  the  horse 


sot  onto   him.      And   that  's   what  's   the  matter, 

Mr.  Skimmerton." 

"  Mrs.  Sparhawk,"  began  Mr.  Brimmington  — 
"  I   ain't  no   Sparhawk ! "    fairly   shouted   the 

enraged  woman,  as  with  a  furious  shove  she  sent 

the  Cumbersome  Horse  staggering  down  the  door- 

3  /9 


y   d&ore  "Sbort  Sijes."   ^ 

way  mound;  "this  here  's  Hiram  Skinner,  the 
meanest  man  in  Pike  County,  and  I  'm  his  wife, 
let.  out  to  do  day's  work !  You  've  had  one 
week  of  him — how  would  you  have  liked  twenty 

years  ?  " 


MR.    VINCENT    EGG    AND    THE 
WAGE    OF    SIN. 


MR.    VINCENT    EGG    AND    THE 
WAGE     OF     SIN. 


!R.  VINCENT  EGG  and  the -daughter 
of  his  washerwoman  walked  out  of 
the  front  doorway  of  Mr.  Egg's 
lodging-house  into  the  morning  sun 
light,  with  very  different  expressions 
upon  their  two  faces. 
Mr.  Vincent  Egg,  although  he  was 
old  and  stout  and  red-r.osed  and  shabby  in  his 
attire,  wore  a  look  that  was  at  once  timorous, 
fatuous,  and  weakly  menuacious;  a  look  that 
tried  to  tell  the  possible  passer-by  that  his  red 
nose  and  watery  eyes  bloomed  and  blinked  in 
the  smiles  of  Virginie.  Virginie,  although  she 
was  young  and  pretty  and  also  thin  of  face  and 
poverty  -  stricken  of  garb,  wore  a  look  which 
told  you  plainly  and  most  honestly  beyond  a 
question,  that  she  had  no  smiles  for  Mr.  Egg 
or  for  any  one  else.  They  walked  down  the 
middle  of  the  street  side  by  side,  but  that  they 
could  not  very  well  help  doing,  ifor  the  street 
was  both  narrow  and  dirty,  and  the  edges  of 
the  stone  gutter  down  its  midway  offered  the 
only  clean  foothold  in  its  entire  breadth.  As 
they  walked  on  together,  Mr.  Egg  made  a 


few  poor-spirited  attempts  to  start  up  a  gallant 
conversation  with  the  girl;  but  she  made  no 
response  whatever  to  his  remarks,  and  strode  on 
in  dark-faced  silence,  her  empty  wash  -  basket 
poised  between  her  lank  right  hip  and  her  thin 
right  elbow.  Mr.  Egg  hemmed  and  cleared  a 
husky  throat,  and  employed  both  his  unsteady 
hands  in  setting  his  tall,  shabby  silk  hat  upon 
his  head  in  such  a  manner  that  its  broad  brim 
might  keep  the  sunlight  out  of  his  eyes. 

Mr.  Vincent  Egg  was  in  the  little  city  of 
Drignan  on  business.  His  lodgings  were  in  the 
rue  des  Qtiatres  Mulcts,  because  they  were  the 
cheapest  lodgings  he  could  find.  There  are  pret 
tier  towns  than  Drignan,  and  even  in  Drignan 
there  are  many  better  streets  than  the  rue  des 
23 


"Sbort  Sixes."    ^ 

Quatres  Mulcts.  But  it  was  much  the  same  to 
Mr.  Egg.  He  took  his  shabby  lodgings,  the 
rebuffs  of  the  fair,  the  sunlight  of  other  men's 
fortunes  dazzling  his  weak  eyes  —  all  these  things 
he  took  with  an  easy  indifference  of  mind  so  long 
as  life  gave  him  the  little  he  asked  of  it,  namely : 
a  periodic  indulgence  in  alcoholic  unconscious 
ness.  A  simple  drunk,  once  a  month,  of  at  least 
a  week's  duration,  was  what  Mr.  Egg's  soul  most 
craved  and  desired ;  but  if  his  fluctuating  means 
made  the  period  of  intoxication  briefer  or  the 
period  of  sobriety  longer,  he  bore  either  event 
with  a  certain  simple  heroism.  He  wanted  no 
"  spree,"  no  "  toot,"  no  "  tear ; "  a  modest  spell 
of  sodden,  dreamy,  tearfully  happy  soaking  in 
the  back-room  of  some  cheap  wine-shop  where 
he  and  his  ways  were  known  —  this  was  all  that 
remained  of  ambition  and  aspiration  in  Mr.  Egg's 
life ;  which  had  been,  for  the  rest,  a  long  life,  a 
harmless  life  (except  in  the  stern  moralist's  sense), 
and  a  life  that  was  decidedly  a  round,  complete 
and  total  failure  in  spite  of  an  exceptional  allot 
ment  of  abilities  and  opportunities.  Mr.  Egg 
had  been  many  things  in  the  course  of  that  long 
and  varied  life — lawyer,  doctor,  newspaper-man, 
speculator,  actor,  manager,  horse-dealer  and  race 
track  gamester,  croupier  (and  courier,  even,  after 
a  fashion) — and  heaven  knows  what  else  beside, 
of  things  avowable  and  unavowable.  Just  at 
present,  he  was  supplying  an  English  firm  of 
Tourist -Excursion  Managers  with  a  guide-book 
of  their  various  routes,  at  the  rate  of  eighteen- 
pence  per  page  of  small  type,  and  his  traveling 
expenses  —  third  -  class.  He  had  just  finished 
"  doing  up  "  the  district  last  allotted  to  him ;  and, 
24 


flbr.  Vincent  J&QQ  ano  tbe 


of  Sin. 


after  two  weeks'  of  traveling  about,  he  had  spent 
another  fortnight  in  writing  up  his  notes  in  a 
dingy  little  lodging-house  room  in  the  rue  des 
Quatres  Mulets.  He  knew  his  ground  thor 
oughly,  and  that  was  the  cheapest  place. 

Such   was    Mr.  Vincent    Egg,   after   a   half- 
century   of  struggle   with   the   world ;    and    some 
thing  of  an  imposing  figure  he  made,  too,  in  his 
defeat   and  degradation. 
His  nose  was  red,  his 

i          t  lY1     i  ''  ''''-' 

cheeks  were  purled 
and    veined,    there 
were    bags     under 
his  bloodshot  eyes, 
his   close-cropped 
hair  was  thin,  his 
stubby  little   gray 
moustache,      des 
perately  waxed  at 
the     ends,      gave 
an    incongruously 
foreign    touch    to 
his  decidedly  An 
glo-Saxon  face  — 
and     his     clothes 
were     shockingly 
shabby.      But   then 

he  wore  his  clothes,  as  few  men  in  our  day 
can  wear  clothes ;  and  they  were  his  clothes ; 
his  very  own,  and  not  another's.  People  often 
spoke  of  him,  after  seeing  him  once,  as  "that 
big,  soldierly-looking  old  man  in  the  white  hat." 
But  he  did  not  wear  a  white  hat.  His  hat, 
which  was  one  of  the  largest,  one  of  the  jauntiest 
and  one  of  the  oldest  ever  seen,  had  also  been, 


<y   More  "Sbort  Sixes."    -y 

in  its  time,  one  of  the  blackest.  It  was  his  coat 
that  gave  people  an  idea  of  his  having  some 
thing  about  him  that  suggested  white.  It  was 
a  tightly-buttoned  frock-coat  of  an  indescribable 
light-dirty  color.  Most  hopelessly  shabby  men 
cling  to  some  standard  of  taste  in  dress  that 
was  the  standard  in  their  last-remembered  days 
of  prosperity.  That  coat —  if  it  were  one  coat 
and  not  only  one  of  a  long  -  lived  family  — 
marked  the  fact  that  the  last  season  of  pros 
perity  Mr.  Egg  had  enjoyed  was  a  season,  now 
some  twenty  years  gone,  when  the  London 
"swells"  or  "nobs,"  or  whatever  they  called 
them  then,  wore  frock-coats  of  certain  fashion 
able  light  shades  of  fawn  and  mouse-color,  then 
known,  I  believe,  as  "  London  Smoke"  and 
"  French  Gray."  While  it  can  not  be  said  that 
Mr.  Egg's  coat  was  familiar  in  every  quarter 
of  Europe  (for  it  rarely  staid  long  enough  in 
any  one  place),  it  had  certainly  been  seen  in 
all.  And  more  than  one  Austrian  officer,  after 
passing  Mr.  Egg  in  that  garment  of  pallid, 
dubious  and  puzzling  hue,  had  turned  sharply 
around  to  satisfy  himself  that  it  was  not  a  uni 
form-coat  in  a  condition  of  profanation.  A  cer 
tain  state  and  dignity  that  still  clung  to  this  coat, 
and  the  startling  cleanness  of  his  well-scissored 
cuffs  and  collars  were  all  that  remained  to  give 
Mr.  Egg  a  hold  upon  exterior  respectability. 

With  such  a  history,  Mr.  Egg  was  naturally 
well  versed  in  the  freemasonry  of  poverty  and 
need.  As  his  eyes  became  accustomed  to  the 
sun,  he  looked  at  the  girl's  pinched  face,  and 
his  tones  suddenly  changed.  Vincent  Egg  spoke 
several  languages,  and  he  knew  all  their  social 
26 


dialects  and  variations.  It  was  in  friendly  and 
familiar  speech  that  he  addressed  the  girl,  and 
asked  her  —  What  was  the  matter?  and,  Was 
the  business  going  ill  ? 

If  Virginie  had  been  the  poor  girl  you  meet 
with  in  the  stories  written  by  English  ladies  of 
a  mildly  religious  turn  of  mind,  she  would  have 
dropped  a  little  curtsey  and  said  with  a  single 
tear,  "  Indeed,  sir,  I  had  not  meant  to  speak, 
but  you  have  hit  upon  the  truth.  The  business 
goes  very  ill,  indeed,  and  without  help  I  do  not 
see  how  my  poor  mother  can  survive  the  Win 
ter."  But  Virginie,  obeying  the  instincts  of  her 
nature  and  her  education,  responded  to  Mr.  Egg 
with  a  single  coarse  French  adjective  which  is 
only  to  be  rendered  in  English,  I  am  afraid,  by 
the  word  "stinking." 

Mr.  Egg  was  not  in  the  least  shocked.  He 
cast  his  blinking  eyes  about  him  at  the  filthy 
27 


•y    dfcore  "Sbort  Sixes."    V 

roadway,  at  the  narrow  old  stone  houses  that 
crowded  both  sides  of  the  street  with  the  peaked 
roofs  of  their  over-hanging  upper-stories,  almost 
shutting  out  the  sky  above  his  head,  at  the  count 
less  century  -  old  stains  of  damp  and  rust  and 
shameful  soilure  upon  their  dull  faces,  and  he 
said  simply : 

"  Fichu  locale  ! " 

Thereby  he  amply  expressed  to  his  hearer 
his  opinion  that  if  the  business  deserved  the 
adjective  she  had  accorded  it,  the  explanation 
was  to  be  found  in  its  unfortunate  location. 
This  opened  the  flood  gates  of  Virginie's  speech. 
She  told  Mr.  Egg  that  he  was  entirely  right 
about  the  location,  and  gave  him  a  few  casual 
corroborative  details  which  showed  him  that 
she  knew  what  she  was  talking  about.  She  also 
confided  to  him  enough  of  her  family  affairs 
to  account  for  the  bitterness  of  her  spirit  and 
her  contempt  for  mirthful  dalliance.  It  was  no 
thing  but  the  old  endless  story  of  poverty  in 
one  of  its  innumerable  variants.  This  time  the 
father,  a  jobbing  stone  -  mason,  had  not  only 
broken  his  leg  in  Marseilles,  but  on  coming  out 
of  the  hospital  had  got  drunk,  assaulted  a  gen- 
d'arme,  made  a  compound  fracture  of  it,  and  laid 
himself  up  for  several  months.  This  time  the 
mother  had  a  rheumatic  swelling  of  one  arm, 
which  hindered  her  in  her  washing.  This  time 
the  eldest  boy  had  got  himself  into  some  trouble 
in  trying  to  evade  the  performance  of  his  term 
of  military  duty.  This  time  the  youngest  child 
had  some  torturing  disease  of  the  spine  that 
necessitated  —  or  rather  needed  —  an  operation. 
And,  of  course,  as  at  all  times,  there  were  five 

sS 


/for.  Vincent  J£QQ  an&  tbe 


of  Sin. 


or.  six  hungry  mouths,  associated  with  as  many 
pairs  of  comparatively  helpless  hands,  between 
Virginie  and  that  youngest.  And  as  to  busi 
ness,  that  was  certainly  bad.  It  was  particu 
larly  bad  of  late  —  although  it  was  always  bad 


in  Drignan.  Virginie  told  Mr.  Egg  that  he  was 
"  rudement  propre,"  or  "  blazing  clean  "  —  clean 
as  they  were  not  in  Drignan,  she  assured  him. 
In  fact,  it  appeared,  this  strange  English  gentle 
man,  who  had  paid  as  high  as  a  franc-and-a-half 
a  week  for  his  washing,  had  been  accepted  by 
Yirginie's  family  as  designed  in  the  mercy  of 
Divine  Providence  to  tide  them  over  their  period 
of  distress.  His  departure  at  the  end  of  two 
weeks  was  a  sore  disappointment  in  a  financial 
point  of  view. 

Vincent  Egg  was  a  very  kind-hearted  man, 
and  he  listened  to  this  recital,  and  uttered  sympa 
thetic  ejaculations  in  the  right  places.  He  was 


^    flftore  "Sbort  Sijee."    v 

sorry  about  the  youngest  child,  very  sorry;  he 
had  known  a  case  like  it.  Perhaps,  he  sug 
gested,  business  might  pick  up.  Messrs.  Sculry 
&  Co.,  the  great  English  managers  of  Tourists' 
Excursions,  were  going  to  make  Urignan  a  stop 
ping-place  for  their  excursions  on  the  way  to 
Avignon.  It  was  going  to  be  a  stopping-place 
of  only  a  few  hours,  but,  perhaps,  it  might  bring 
some  business.  Who  knew  ?  Virginie  bright 
ened  up  when  she  heard  this,  and  said  that  was 
so.  Those  English,  she  remarked,  were  always 
washing  —  no  disrespect  intended  to  the  gen 
tleman. 

"And  here,"  'she  said,  as  they  came  abreast 
of  a  narrow  gateway  on  the  other  side  of  the 
street  from  Mr.  Egg's  lodging-house,  "is  where 
I  live.  It  is  on  the  ground  floor.  Will  Mon 
sieur  come  in  and  see  the  baby?"  And  her 
eyes  lit  up  for  the  first  time  with  a  real  interest 
—  the  interest,  half-proud,  and  half-morbid,  of 
a  poor,  simple  creature  who  longs  to  exhibit 
to  the  world  the  affliction  of  monstrosity  which 
sets  her  poor  household  apart  from  others  of 
its  kind. 

Now,  Mr.  Egg  had  not  the  slightest  desire 
to  see  the  baby,  and  he  had  no  intention  what 
ever  of  going  in ;  but,  glancing  through  the  nar 
row  doorway,  he  saw  a  succession  of  arches  in 
the  courtyard  beyond,  and  some  old  bits  of 
mediaeval  masonry,  which  excited  his  curiosity. 
If  this  were  the  remains  of  some  old  monastery 
that  had  escaped  his  notice,  it  might  mean  a 
half -page  more  —  nine -pence  —  in  his  guide 
book.  He  strolled  in  by  Virginie's  side,  heed 
less  of  her  chatter.  No;  it  was  not  the  ruin 


of  an  ecclesiastical  structure.  The  courtyard 
was  only  a  part  of  an  old  stable  and  black 
smith-shop;  old,  but  no  older  probably  than  the 
rest  of  that  old  street,  which  might  have  been 
standing  at  the  time  of  Louis  XIV  —  though 
it  probably  was  n't.  From  its  proximity  to  a 
canal  that  marked  the  line  of  an  old  moat, 
Mr.  Egg  made  a  safe  guess  that  it  was  a  small 
remnant  of  the  stables  and  farriery  attached  to 


"Sbort  Sties."    -y 

the  barracks  of  the  original  fortifications  of  the 
town. 

At  any  rate,  it  was  no  fish  for  the  net  of 
Messrs.  Sciilry  &  Co.'s  guide-book  compiler;  and 
he  was  turning  to  go,  when  Virginie,  who  had 
supposed  that  he  was  merely  following  in  her 
lead,  to  feast  his  eyes  upon  the  sick  baby,  said 
simply,  as  she  pushed  open  a  door,  "  This  way, 
Monsieur,"  and,  before  he  knew  it,  he  had  en 
tered  his  washerwoman's  room. 

Although  it  was  a  ground-floor  room,  damp, 
dark  and  old,  it  was  clean  witli  a  curious  sort  of 
cleanness  that  seems  to  belong  to  the  Latin  races 
—  a  cleanness  that  gives  one  the  impression  of 
having  been  achieved  without  the  use  of  soap 
and  water :  as  if  everything  had  been  scraped 
clean  instead  of  being  washed  clean.  Virginie's 
mother  was  clean,  too,  in  spite  of  her  swollen  and 
helpless  arm,  and  the  three  or  four  children  who 
were  playing  on  the  stone  floor  were  no  dirtier 
than  healthy  children  ought  to  be  between 
washes.  But  Mr.  Egg  had  hardly  had  time 
to  take  more  than  cursory  note  of  these  facts 
before  his  attention  was  riveted  by  the  sick 
child  in  the  French  woman's  arms  —  so  pitiful 
a  little  piece  of  suffering  childhood  that  a  much 
harder-hearted  man  than  Mr.  Vincent  Egg  might 
readily  have  been  shocked  at  the  sight  of  it.  As 
for  Mr.  Egg,  he  simply  dropped  into  a  seated 
posture  upon  a  convenient  bench,  and  stared 
in  the  fascination  of  pity  and  horror. 

Mr.  Egg  knew  little  of  children  and  less  of 
their  diseases.  In  the  ordinary  course  of  things, 
such  matters  were  not  often  brought  to  his  atten 
tion  ;  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  had  he  known  what 

3* 


he  was  to  see  there,  no  persuasion  would  have 
induced  him  to  enter  that  poor  little  room.  Now 
that  he  did  see  it,  however,  he  could  not  move 
his  eyes :  the  spectacle  had  for  him  a  hideous 
attraction  of  novelty.  Virginie  and  her  mother 
exhibited  the  poor  little  misshapen  thing,  and 
rattled  over  the  history  of  the  case  with  a  volu 
bility  which  showed  that  it  was  no  new  tale. 
For  fifteen  minutes  their  visitor  sat  and  stared 
in  horrified  silence;  and,  when  at  last  he  made 
his  way  back  to  the  street,  he  found  that  his 
mind  was  in  a  more  disturbed  state  than  he  had 
known  it  to  be  in  many  years. 

It  is  the  people  who  most  avoid  the  sight 
of  human  suffering  who  very  often  are  the  most 
sharply  shocked  by  it  when  that  sight  is  ob 
truded  upon  them.  Your  professional  nurse  soon 

33 


•^   /nSorc  "£bort  Sties."   ^ 

learns  to  succor  without  lamentation :  it  is  the 
person  who  "  really  has  no  faculty  for  nursing " 
who  goes  into  spasms  of  sensibility  over  the  sight 
of  a  finger  caught  in  a  cog-wheel,  and  runs  about 
clamoring  for  new  laws  for  the  suppression  of  all 
machinery  not  constructed  of  India-rubber.  Up 
to  half  an  hour  before,  Mr.  Egg  had  never  wasted 
many  thoughts  upon  the  millions  of  suffering 
babies  in  this  world ;  and  now  he  could  not 
turn  his  thoughts  to  anything  except  the  par 
ticular  baby  that  he  had  just  seen. 

And  yet,  as  he  had  told  Virginie,  he  had 
known  of  a  similar  case  before,  though  it  be 
longed  to  a  time  so  long  ago  that  it  had 
practically  faded  from  his  mind.  It  was  the  case 
of  his  own-  brother,  who  had  died  in  infancy  of 
some  such  trouble,  one  of  the  earliest  victims  of 
an  operation  at  that  time  in  its  earliest  experi 
mental  stages.  That  was  more  than  half  a 
century  ago,  and  Vincent  Egg  had  no  remem 
brance  whatever  of  the  little  brother.  But  he 
did  remember  his  first  childish  impression  of  a 
visit  to  the  hospital  where  the  little  one  lay  — 
of  the  smell  of  the  disinfectants  and  the  chill 
of  the  whitewashed  walls. 

The  heart  of  Mr.  Egg  was  touched,  and 
he  felt  himself  moved  with  a  strong  desire  to 
extend  some  help  to  these  people  who  were  so 
much  worse  off  than  he  was.  Yet  Mr.  Egg's 
intellectual  parts  told  him  that  there  was  no 
possibility  of  his  doing  anything  of  the  sort.  He 
knew,  beyond  any  chance  of  fond  delusion,  his 
present  position  and  his  future  prospects.  He 
had  his  ticket  back  to  Lyons,  where  the  local 
branch  of  Messrs.  Sculry  &  Co.  had  its  office: 

34 


/fcr.  Wincent  &QQ  anfc  tbe  Mage  of  Silt. 


he  had  in  his  valise  at  his  lodgings  just  enough 
money  for  his  necessary  sustenance  upon  his 
journey.  And  not  one  other  penny,  not  one 
soumarkee  would  he  have  until,  at  Messrs.  Sculry 
&  Co.'s  office,  his  work  had  been  measured  down 
to  the  last  syllable,  and  he  had  received  therefor  as 
many  times  eighteen-pence  as  he  had  produced 
pages.  That  would  be,  it  was  true,  quite  a  neat 
little  sum,  but  —  and  here  came  in  the  big  BUT 
of  Mr.  Egg's  existence. 

For  Mr.  Egg  knew  exactly  what  was  going 
to  become  of  that  money.     To  draw 
it  at  all,  he  would  have  to  pre 
sent   himself  at  the  office  in  a 
condition    of    sobriety,    which 
would  be  the  last  effort  of  a 
period  of  abstinence  that  he 
was   beginning   to   find   very 
trying.     Then,  so  much  of  it 
must  go  to  buying  himself  back 
into  the  three  or  four  attenuated  credits  by  grace 
of  which    he   lived  his   poor  life   at   Lyons  ;   and 
just  enough  would  be  left  to  give  him  that  fort 
night  of  drunken  stupor  for  which  he  had  worked 
so  long  and  so  hard. 

Mr.  Egg  needed  an  effort  rather  of  the 
memory  than  of  the  imagination  to  forecast  the 
recurrence  of  that  familiar  stupor.  He  could 
see  himself  leaving  the  spick-and-span,  highly 
respectable  office  of  the  Lyons  agency  of  Messrs. 
Sculry  &  Co.,  and  hurrying  off  upon  the  few 
bits  of  business  that  must  be  attended  to  before 
he  could  present  himself  at  "  his  "  wine-shop, 
which  was  a  very  dirty  one,  indeed,  kept  by  a 
certain  M.  and  Mme.  Louis  Morel,  in  an  appro- 

4  35 


V    d&°re  "Sbort  Sires."    V 

priately  unclean  back  street.  There  he  knew 
just  what  to  expect  in  the  way  of  noisy,  ready- 
handed,  false-faced  welcome.  Then  would  come 
the  tantalizingly-prolonged  bargaining  over  the 
score  to  be  settled  and  the  score  to  be  begun, 
and  at  last  he  would  be  free  to  take  possession 
of  that  dark,  ill-ventilated  little  back  room  which 
was  always  reserved  for  the  periodical  retire 
ments  of  this  regular  patron  of  the  house.  It 
was  a  little  room  like  a  ship's  stateroom,  hardly 
large  enough  to  contain  its  dirty  red  velvet 
divan,  its  round  table  and  its  two  chairs ;  yet 
for  a  week  or  a  fortnight  it  would  be  his,  and 
behind  it,  in  the  hallway,  was  a  bed  on  which 
he  could  stretch  himself  in  the  hours  when  he 
felt  the  need  of  deeper  slumber  than  the  hard 
cushions  of  the  divan  permitted.  There  his  few 
friends,  outcasts  and  adventurers  like  himself, 
would  drop  in  to  see  him,  one  or  two  at  a  time, 
to  help  him  on  his  murky  way  with  challenges 
to  bouts  of  brandy-drinking,  in  which  he  would 
always  pay  for  two  glasses  to  the  other  man's 
one.  Then,  as  the  procession  of  callers  went  on, 
it  would  grow  dim  and  dimmer  and  vague  and 
yet  more  vague,  until  it  was  lost  in  a  hazy, 
wavering  dream,  wherein  familiar  faces  of  men 
and  women  stared  at  him  from  out  of  days  so 
long  gone  by  that  in  his  dream  he  could  fancy 
them  happy. 

That  was  what  lay  before  him.  Mr.  Vin 
cent  Egg  knew  it  as  well  as  he  knew  that  the 
calendar  months  would  go  on  in  their  regular 
order,  and  the  tides  in  the  sea  would  continue 
to  rise  and  fall.  Under  these  circumstances, 
nothin  was  more  certain  than  that  the  unfortu- 


nate  family  of  Mr.  Egg's  washerwoman  need 
look  for  no  help  whatever  from  Mr.  Egg's  pros 
pective  earnings.  "  It 's  a  damned  shame ! "  said 
Mr.  Egg  to  himself,  slapping  his  thigh.  And  it 
was  a  shame.  But  there  it  was. 

Suddenly  a  great  thought  struck  Mr.  Egg 
—  a  thought  so  great  and  so  forcible  in  the 
blow  that  it  dealt  his  mental  apprehension  that 
for  three  minutes  he  stood  stock-still  in  the  gut 
ter  in  the  middle  of  the  rue  des  Quatre  Mulcts. 
Then  somebody  poured  a  pail  of  water  out  of  a 
door-way  and  drowned  him  out,  but  he  went  on 
his  way,  quite  indifferent  to  wet  feet. 

Mr.  Vincent  Egg  went  to  his  lodgings,  and 
there  extracted  from  his  valise  the  very  small 
sum  of  money  which  he  had  laid  aside  for  his 
necessary  sustenance  on  his  trip  to  Lyons.  This 
he  took  to  a  sign-painter  on  the  outskirts  of 
Drignan,  to  whom  he  paid  the  whole  of  it  for 

37 


^   dfcore  "Sbort  Sijee."    *y+ 

the  execution  of  a  small  but  conspicuous  sign 
board,  which  he  carried  away  with  him  under 
his  arm. 


The  usual  afternoon  wind  was  blowing  in 
Drignan,  chill  and  raw,  with  a  depressing  flavor 
of  a  spoilt  ocean  about  it.  The  sky  was  over 
cast,  and  everything  was  dismal  in  the  dismal 
little  town.  Dismalest  of  all,  perhaps,  was  a 
wretched  little  corner  of  waste  land,  between  the 
old  barrack-wall  and  the  dirty  canal  behind  it. 
A  few  sick,  stunted,  faded  olive  and  orange  trees 
in  the  lee  of  a  mean  stone  wall  showed  that  the 
place  had  at  one  time  been  a  garden  or  court 
yard.  Heaps  of  rubbish  here  and  there  showed 
also  that  it  had  long  outlived  its  usefulness. 
Here  sat,  one  on  each  side  of  a  tiny  fire  of 
twigs,  a  shabby,  soldierly-looking  old  gentleman 
and  a  sallow,  lanky  young  girl  with  a  sullenly 
pretty  face.  Right  in  the  sluggish  smoke  of  the 
fire,  the  old  man  held  a  small  sign-board  still 
fresh  from  the  painter's  hand,  and  the  more  the 
smoke  took  the  brightness  out  of  the  new  colors, 
the  more  he  gazed  at  it  with  thoughtful  ap 
proval.  The  girl  said  nothing;  but  sat  and 
stared  at  the  fire  and  listened  with  an  air  of 
weary  and  indifferent  toleration  while  the  old 
man  repeated  over  and  over  what  sounded  like 
a  monotonous  narrative  recitation.  From  time 
to  time  she  nodded  her  head;  and,  at  last,  she 
began  to  repeat  after  the  old  man  in  a  listless, 
mechanical  way.  It  was  late  in  the  afternoon 
before  they  rose  and  scrambled  over  the  heaps 
of  rubbish  to  the  street,  where  the  old  gentle- 
38 


man  bade  the  girl  good-by  with  what  were 
evidently  words  of  earnest  admonition.  His 
iteration  seemed  to  annoy  her,  for  finally  she 
let  slip,  in  a  tone  of  anger,  a  specimen  of  the 
speech  of  the  people  which  was  n't  exactly  this ; 
though  at  this  we  will  let  it  go: 

"  Vous  savez,  mons  vieux,  je  m'en  fiche 
bien  de  votre  Pe  —  Pe  —  Petrarque  —  et  de 
votre  Laure  aussi  — " 

Then  she  as  quickly  dropped  back  into 
her  natural  tone  of  hopeless  submission  to  all 
who  were  less  wretched  than  herself,  and  said, 
with  something  like  gratitude  in  her  voice : 

"All  the  same,  it  is  very  kind  of  you,  sir. 
I  will  try  to  do  as  you  have  told  me." 

39 


Sbort  Sfjes."    ^ 

And    they    parted,    she    entering   a   near-by 
passage-way,  and  he  going  to  the  railroad  station. 


Mr.  Vincent  Egg  stood  in  the  private  office 
of  the  Lyons  branch  of  Messrs.  Sculry  &  Co., 
the  great  Excursion  Managers.  He  was,  for 
him,  unusually  smart  as  to  his  clothes  —  to 
those  who  knew  him,  a  sign  that  he  had 
reached  the  end  of  his  period  of  abstinence. 
The  Manager  of  the  Branch,  a  thin,  raw,  red- 
faced  little  Englishman  with  sandy  whiskers,  was 
looking  over  the  proofs  of  the  guide-book  pages 
set  up  from  Mr.  Egg's  copy. 

"Oh,  ah,  yes,  Egg!"  he  said;  "I  knew  there 
was  something  particular  I  wanted  to  speak  to 
you  about.  Here  it  is."  And  he  slowly  read 
aloud  : 

"Another  and  perhaps  the  principal  attrac 
tion  of  Drignan  is  the  ruin,  pathetic  in  its  dignity, 
of  the  mansion  of  the  Conte  dei  Canale,  the 
exiled  Venetian,  where  the  immortal  poet  Petrarch 
and  the  no  less  immortal  lady  of  his  love,  whom 
he  has  celebrated  in  undying  verse,  met  secretly, 
in  the  year  1337,  to  bid  each  other  a  long  and 
chaste  farewell.  News  of  the  lovers'  design  hav 
ing  reached  the  ears  of  de  Sade,  the  husband  of 
the  beauteous  Laura,  his  base  mind  suspected  an 
elopement,  and  he  dispatched  his  liveried  minions 
to  separate  the  pair,  and,  if  possible,  to  immolate 
on  the  altar  of  his  vengeance  the  gentle  and 
talented  poet.  It  is  supposed  to  be  in  conse 
quence  of  injuries  received  in  the  resultant 
40 


struggle  that  Petrarch  went  into  retirement  for 
three  years  at  Vaucluse  (a  spot  which  no  holder 
of  Messrs.  Sculry  &  Co.'s  7-9  extra- trip  coupon 
should  fail  to  see).  This  exquisite  chapter  in  the 
lives  of  the  lovers  over  whom  so  many  tears  of 
sentiment  have  been  shed,  has  been  strangely 
neglected  by  the  historians;  but  survives  un- 
dimmed  in  local  tradition.  A  full  account  will 
be  found  on  page  329.  The  house  is  now  47  bis 
rue  des  Quatres  Mulcts.  Behind  it  may  still  be 
seen  what  remains  of  the  magnificent  orangery 
and  olive-garden  of  the  Conte  dei  Canale.  Access 
to  this  is  gained  from  the  second  gateway  from 
the  corner  of  the  Passage  des  Pores,  and  should 
not  be  confounded  with  the  entrance  to  the 
Jardin  de  Perse,  a  resort  of  somewhat  frivolous 


V   flbore  "Sbort  Sties."   y 

character,  situated  on  the  second  crossing  below, 
rue  Clement  V." — 

Here  the  Manager  raised  his  head.  "I 
suppose  that  's  for  the  men  ? " 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Egg;   "that  's  for  the  men." 

"Well,"  said  the  Manager,  "what  about  this 
other  attraction,  this  Petrarch  and  Laura  place  ? " 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Egg,  blinking  at  him,  for 
it  was  still  early  in  the  morning;  "there  it  is, 
as  large  as  life,  with  a  sign  on  the  door  that 
looks  as  if  it  had  been  there  fifty  years;  and 
I  '11  give  it  to  you  as  my  opinion  that  if  you 
don't  work  that  attraction,  the  Novelty  Excursion 
Company  will  jump  in  and  work  it  for  you." 

"Ay,  ay!"  said  the  Manager,  irritably; 
"that  's  all  very  well;  but  how  about  the  fees? 
That  excursion  goes  by  way  of  Drignan  to  save 
money.  The  London  office  won't  thank  me  if 
I  give  them  any  extra  fees  to  pay." 

"Oh!"  said  Mr.  Egg,  pleasantly;  "is  that 
all  ?  Here,  give  me  that  proof."  And,  taking 
the  sheets  from  the  manager,  he  wrote  as  follows, 
cm  the  margin : 

''The  mansion  is  at  present  owned  by  a 
respectable  family  who  also  do  trustworthy 
washing.  A  polite,  well-informed  attendant  is 
always  ready  to  show  the  premises  on  payment 
of  a  moderate  fee  of  35  centimes,  (3^  d.)  Al 
though  no  part  of  the  regular  excursion,  the 
liberal  time  allowed  by  Messrs.  Sculry  &  Co., 
for  rest  and  refreshment  in  Drignan,  will  enable 
excursionists  to  visit  this  shrine  of  deathless, 
romance." 


^f  /for.  Wincent  Egg  an&  tbe  IHlage  of  Sin.  ^» 

The  Manager  took  the  amended  proof  back, 
and  read  it  admiringly. 

"By  Jove,  Egg!"  he  said;  "that  does  it 
to  the  Queen's  taste!  An  attraction  like  that, 
and  not  a  penny's  expense  to  the  concern!  I 

suppose,  of  course, 

/"^*sr—> really  and  truly, 

it  'sail   Tom 


my-rot  ?  " 

"  I  suppose 
so,"  said  Mr. 
Egg,  pleasant- 

iy- 

"  Never  was 
any    such    busi 
ness,  I   suppose," 
went  on  the  Manager. 
"I    don't   believe    it,   my 
self,"  said  Mr.  Egg,  shaking  his  head  sagely. 

"Well,"  said  the  Manager,  "it  's  all  right 
for  business,  so  far  as  the  Avignon  tour  is  con 
cerned.  And,  oh !  I  say,  Egg,  I  don't  suppose 
you  could  keep  permanently  straight,  could  you?" 
"At  my  time  of  life,"  said  Mr.  Egg,  blandly, 
"a  gentleman's  habits  are  apt  to  be  fixed." 

"I  suppose  so,"  sighed  the  Manager.  "Well, 
all  the  same,  the  London  office  was  very  much 
pleased  with  the  last  job  you  did,  Egg,  and  they 
have  authorized  me,  at  my  discretion,  to  increase 
your  honorarium.  We  '11  make  it  a  shilling  a 
page,  beginning  with  the  present." 

When  Mr.  Vincent  Egg  reached  the  street, 
he  looked  at  the  unexpected  pile  of  wealth  irj 
his  hand. 

('This    i§    a    three    weeks'    go   at 


•^    flbore  "Sbort  Sljes."    V 

said  he  to  himself;  "such  as  I  have  n't  had  in 
many  a  year.  And,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
it  is  the  Fruit  of  Falsification,  and  the  Wage 
of  Sin." 

But  when  Mr.  Egg  next  awoke  from  his 
period  of  slumber  in  M.  Morel's  back-room, 
and  stretched  himself  upon  the  hard  cushion  of 
the  red  velvet  divan,  throngs  of  gawking  tourists 
were  trying  to  steep  themselves  in  sentiment  as 
they  gazed  about  the  old  room  off  the  rue  des 
Quatres  Mulcts,  and  looked  over  the  wall  at 
the  faded  orange  and  olive  trees,  and  listened 
to  the  story  which  Virginie  told,  like  a  talking- 
doll,  and  dropped  into  her  hand  a  welcome 
stream  of  copper  or  silver,  according  as  they 
were  English  or  Americans. 


44 


THE    GHOOLLAH. 


THE    GHOOLLAH. 


TOOK  a  long  drive  one  day  last  Summer 
to  see  an  old  friend  of  mine  who  was  in 
singularly  hard  luck;  and  I  found  him  in 
even  harder  luck  and  more  singular  than 
I  had  expected.  My  drive  took  me  to 
a  spot  a  few  miles  back  of  a  Southern 
sea-coast,  where,  in  a  cup-like  hollow  of  the  low, 
rocky  hills,  treeless  save  for  stunted  and  distorted 
firs  and  pines,  six  or  eight  score  of  perspiring 
laborers,  attired  in  low-necked  costumes  consist 
ing  exclusively  of  a  pair  of  linen  trousers  a-piece, 
toil  all  day  in  the  blazing  sun  to  dig  out  some 
kind  of  clay  of  which  I  know  nothing,  except 
that  it  looks  mean,  smells  worse,  has  a  name 
ending  in  ite,  and  is  of  great  value  in  the  arts 
and  sciences.  They  may  make  fertilizer  out  of 
it,  or  they  may  make  water-colors :  Billings  told 
me,  but  I  don't  know.  There  are  some  things 
that  one  forgets  almost  as  readily  as  a  blow  to 
one's  pride.  Moreover,  this  stuff  was  associated 
in  my  mind  with  Big  Mitch. 

Of  course  Billings  was  making  a  fortune  out 
of  it.  But  as  it  would  take  six  or  eight  years 
to  touch  the  figure  he  had  set  for  himself,  and 
as  he  had  no  special  guarantee  of  an  immortal 
youth  on  this  earth,  and  as,  until  the  fortune 


<y   Gbe  (Bboollab.    ^ 

was  made,  he  had  to  live  all  the  year  around 
in  that  god-forsaken  spot,  and  to  live  with  Big 
Mitch,  moreover,  I  looked  upon  him  as  a  man 
in  uncommonly  hard  luck.  And  he  was. 

I  had  been  visiting  friends  in  a  town  some 
miles  inland,  and  it  had  occurred  to  me  that  it 
would  be  an  act  of  Christian  charity  to  drive 
over  the  hills  to  Billings's  place  of  servitude, 
and  to  condole  with  my  old  friend.  I  had 
nothing  else  to  do  — »a  circumstance  always 
favorable  to  the  perpetration  of  acts  of  Chris 
tian  charity  —  and  I  went.  He  was  enthusi 
astically  glad  to  see  me  —  I  was  the  first  visitor 


he  had  ever  had  —  and  he  left  his  office  at 
once,  and  led  me  up  the  burning  hot  sand-hill 
to  his  house,  which  was  a  very  comfortable  sort 
of  place  when  you  got  there.  It  was  an  old- 
fashioned  Southern  house,  small  but  stately,  with 
a  Grecian  portico  in  front,  supported  by  two- 

47 


•^    /foore  "Sbort  Sijes."   V 

story  wooden  pillars.  Here  he  was  established 
in  lonely  luxury,  with  no  one  to  love,  none  to 
caress,  swarms  of  darkeys,  and  a  cellar  full  of 
wines  that  would  have  tempted  the  Dying  An 
chorite  to  swill.  Casually  dispatching  half  a 
dozen  niggers  after  as  many  bottles  of  cham 
pagne  as  they  thought  we  might  need  to  whet 
our  appetites  for  luncheon,  Billings  bade  me 
welcome  again,  and  we  fell  to  friendly  talk. 

He  began  with  that  kind  of  apology  for 
his  condition  that  speaks  its  own  futility,  and 
its  despair  of  any  credence.  Of  course,  he  said, 
it  was  not  a  very  cheerful  sort  of  life,  but  it 
had  its  compensations  —  quiet,  good  for  the 
nerves,  opportunity  for  study  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing,  self-improvement.  And  then,  of  course, 
there  was  society,  such  as  it  was  —  mainly,  he 
had  to  admit,  the  superannuated  bachelors  and 
worn-out  old  maids  who  clung  to  those  decaying 
Southern  plantations  —  for,  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  say,  not  an  acre  of  property  in  that  forlorn 
region,  save  only  Billings's  mud-bank,  had  yielded 
a  cent  of  revenue  since  the  war.  And,  of 
course,  the  unpleasant  part  of  it  was  that  none 
of  them  lived  less  than  ten  or  fifteen  miles  away, 
and  were  only  to  be  reached  by  a  long  ride, 
and  as  he  —  Billings  —  was  never  at  ease  in 
the  saddle,  on  account  of  his  liver,  this  practically 
shut  him  out.  But  then,  of  course,  Mitch  went 
everywhere,  and  enjoyed  it  very  much. 

"  Oh,  yes !  "  said  I,  reminded  of  the  most 
unpleasant  part  of  my  duty ;  "  and  how  is 
Mitch?  " 

"  He  's  dirty  well,  and  it  's  devilish  little 
you  care !  "  brayed  out  an  incredibly  brazen 


^f-   Gbe  (Bboollab.    ^ 

voice  just  behind  my  ear,  and  a  big  red  hand 
snatched  the  bottle  of  champagne  from  my  grasp, 
while  a  laugh,  that  sounded  like  a  hyena  try 
ing  to  bellow,  rang  in  my  ears.  A  great,  big, 
raw-boned  youngster,  dressed  in  clothes  of  an 
ingenious  vulgarity,  dropped  heavily  into  a  chair 
by  my  side  and  laid  a  knobby  broad  red  hand 
on  my  knee,  where  it  closed  with  a  brutal  grip. 
That  was  Big  Mitch,  whose  real  name  was 
Randolph  Mitchel,  and  who  being  by  birth  a 


distant  connection  of  dear  old  Billings,  might 
reasonably  have  been  expected  to  be  some  sort 
or  variety  of  gentleman.  Yet,  if  you  wanted  to 
sum  up  Big  Mitch,  his  ways,  manners,  tastes, 
ideas  and  spiritual  make-up  generally,  —  if  he 
could  be  said  to  have  any  spiritual  make-up  — 
you  had  only  to  say  that  he  was  all  that  a 

49 


V  ASote  "£b<m  Sijes."   ^ 

gentleman  is  not,  and  you  had  a  better  descrip 
tive  characterization  of  the  man  than  you  could 
have  got  in  a  volume  telling  just  what  he  was. 
This  was  not  by  any  means  my  first  acquaint 
ance  with  Mr.  Randolph  Mitchel.  When  I  was 
a  young  man  his  father  had  stood  my  friend, 
and  though  he  had  dropped  out  of  my  sight 
when  he  went,  a  hopeless  consumptive,  to  vege 
tate  in  some  Western  sanitarium,  it  was  natural 
enough  that  he  should  send  to  me  to  use  my 
good  offices  in  behalf  of  his  son,  who  had  been 
expelled  from  a  well-known  fresh-water  college 
of  the  Atlantic  slope,  very  shortly  after  he  had 
entered  it. 

Now  I  am  not  a  hard-hearted  man,  and 
a  boy  with  a  reasonable,  rational,  normal  amount 
of  devil  in  him  can  do  pretty  nearly  anything 
he  wants  to  with  me ;  therefore  it  signifies 
something  when  I  say  that  after  giving  up  a 
week  to  the  business,  I  had  to  write  to  poor 
old  Mr.  Mitchel,  at  the  Consumptives'  Home, 
Bilhi,  Colorado,  not  only  that  was  it  impossible 
to  get  his  son  Randolph  reinstated  at  that  par 
ticular  college,  but  that  I  did  not  believe  that 
there  was  any  college  ever  made  where  the  boy 
had  a  prospect  of  staying  even  one  term  out. 
It  was  not  that  he  was  vicious ;  he  was  no 
worse  on  the  purely  moral  side  than  scores  of 
wild  boys.  But  he  was  the  most  hopelessly, 
irreclaimably  turbulent,  riotous,  unruly,  insolent, 
brutal,  irreverent,  unmannerly  and  generally 
blackguardly  young  devil  that  I  had  ever  en 
countered;  and  the  entire  faculty  of  the  college 
said,  in  their  own  scholastic  way,  that  he  beat 
the'ir  time.  He  had  not  even  the  saving  graces 
so 


' 


^    ttbc  teboollab.    V 

of  good  -  nature,  thoughtlessness  and  mirthful 
good-fellowship,  which  may  serve  as  excuse  for 
much  youthful  waywardness.  The  students  dis 
liked  him  as  thoroughly  as  their  professors  did, 
and  although  he  was  smart  as  a  steel  trap  and 
capable  of  any  amount  of  work  when  he  wanted 
to  do  it,  nobody  in  that  college  wanted  him, — • 
not  even  the  captain  of  the  foot-ball  team. 

Was  I  right  ?  Had  I  wronged  the  boy  ? 
I  asked  that  captain,  and  he  said  No. 

Big  Mitch  was  only  twenty-three  or  so,  but 
he  had  been  many  things  in  his  young  life.  He 
had  run  away  and  traveled  with  a  circus.  He 
had  been  a  helper  in  a  racing  stable.  I  don't 
know  what  he  was  when  his  father  made  a  last 
desperate  appeal  to  poor  Billings,  and  Billings, 
who  did  not  know  what  he  was  letting  himself 
in  for,  sent  him  down  to  start  up  work  on  the 
recently  purchased  mud-pit.  There  Mitch  found 
his  billet,  and  he  led  a  life  of  absolute  happi 
ness,  domineering  over  a  horde  of  helpless,  igno 
rant  negros,  and  white  men  of  an  even  lower 
grade  who  sought  work  in  that  wretched  place. 
And  what  a  life  he  led  the  dear,  gentle,  kindly 
old  fellow  who  had  sold  himself  to  fortune-get 
ting  in  that  little  Inferno !  I  knew  how  Billings 
must  loathe  him;  I  knew,  indeed,  how  he  did 
loathe  him,  though  he  was  too  gentle  to  say  it, 
but  I  knew  that  the  burden  my  poor  old  friend 
had  put  upon  himself  would  not  soon  be  shifted. 
For  Big  Mitch  was  useful,  nay,  indispensable,  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life.  He  was  as  honest  as  he 
was  tough,  and  he  could  handle  that  low  grade 
of  human  material  as  few  others  could  have 
done.  The  speculation  would  have  been  a  failure 

5  Si 


without  him.  "  In  fact,"  Billings  told  me  after 
ward  with  a  sad  smile,  "  it  is  not  only  that  he 
raises  the  efficient  of  the  works;  he  is  the  effi 
cient  of  the  works." 

Big  Mitch  never  bore  me  the  slightest  ill- 
will  for  the  report  I  had  made  to  his  father. 
He  was  too  indurated  an  Ishmael  for  that. 
He  knew  everybody  disliked  him,  but  he  did 
not  care  a  cent  for  that.  When  he  wanted 
other  people's  company,  he  took  it.  The  ques 
tion  of  their  enjoyment  was  one  that  never  en 
tered  his  mind.  It  was  in  pure  delight  in  seeing 
me  that  he  grabbed  my  knee,  pinched  my  knee- 
53 


(Sboollab.    V 

cap  until  it  sent  a  qualm  to  my  stomach,  and 
told  me  that  he  had  ordered  my  driver  to  go 
home,  and  that  I  had  got  to  stay  and  see  the 
country.  Things  came  pretty  near  to  a  lively 
squall  when  I  got  the  impudence  of  this  through 
my  head;  but  when  Billings  joined  his  fright 
ened,  anxious  pleadings  to  the  youth's  brutalities, 
and  I  saw  his  humbled,  troubled,  mortified  face, 
I  yielded. 

We  were  free  from  Mitch  after  luncheon, 
and  poor  Billings  began  to  make  a  pitiful  little 
apology ;  but  I  stopped  him. 

"  I  don't  mind,"  I  said ;  "  I  was  only  think 
ing  of  you" 

"  Oh,  I  Ve  got  accustomed  to  it,"  he  said, 
trying  to  smile;  "and  it  's  really  more  tolerable 
than  you  would  think,  when  you  get  to  know 
him.  And  when  he  is  too  —  too  trying  —  why, 
there  is  one  place  that  he  understands  he  must 
respect.  Come  to  my  library.  You  are  the  first 
person  who  has  ever  entered  it  except  myself." 

He  led  me  to  the  door  of  a  room  at  the 
end  of  a  dark  passage-way.  As  he  put  the  key 
in  the  lock  I  noticed  a  curious  smell. 

"  I  want  you  to  see,"  said  he,  "  the  sort 
of  thing  I  "m  interested  in." 

I  had  not  been  five  seconds  in  the  room 
before  I  knew  what  it  was  —  the  sort  of  thing 
he  was  interested  in.  Loneliness  breeds  strange 
maggots  in  the  brain  of  a  New  Yorker  tem 
porarily  engaged  in  the  mud -mining  business. 
My  old  friend  Billings  was  now  a  full-blown 
Theosophist,  and  he  had  that  little  room  stuffed 
full  of  more  Mahatma-literature  and  faquir  trum 
pery  than  you  could  shake  a  stick  at.  There 

S3 


were  skulls  and  fans  and  grass-cloth  things  and 
heathen  gods  till  —  literally  —  your  eyes  could 
n't  rest.  There  were  four-legged  gods  and  eight- 
legged  gods,  and  gods  with  their  legs  where  their 
arms  ought  to  be,  and  gods  who  were  of  the 
gentleman-god  and  lady-god  sex  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  and  gods  with  horns  and  miscella 
neous  gods,  and  a  few  other  gods.  In  odd  places 
here  and  there,  where  he  had  not  had  time  to 
arrange  them  properly,  there  were  a  few  more 
gods. 

And  then  my  poor  old  friend  sat  down  and 
tried  to  put  me  through  the  whole  business,  and 
tell  me  what  a  great  and  mysterious  thing  it  was, 
and  what  a  splendid  scheme  it  would  be  to  get 
into  the  two -hundred  and  ninety -seventh  state 

54 


^    Cbe  ©boollab.    V 

or  the  thirtieth  dilution  or  the  thirty-third  degree, 
or  something,  for  when  you  got  there  you  were 
nothing,  don't  you  know? 

I  was  short  on  Vishnu  and  I  did  n't  know 
beans  about  Buddha,  and  for  a  long  time,  I  am 
afraid,  I  gave  dear  old  Billings  a  great  deal  of 
grief.  But  finally  I  began  to  get  a  new  light, 
and  Billings  convinced  me  that  there  was  some 
thing  in  it,  and  we  had  some  more  champagne. 

That  evening  Mitch  came  for  us  with  a 
carryall,  and  said  he  was  going  to  drive  us 
twenty  miles  inland  to  a  "  dancing-in-the-barn" 
function  on  somebody's  plantation.  I  proved  to 
him  then  and  there  that  he  was  not.  Billings 
nearly  melted  into  a  puddle  while  the  opera 
tion  was  going  on.  He  could  scarcely  believe 
his  eyes  when  he  saw  Big  Mitch  drive  off  alone, 
and  I  think  he  had  a  slight  chill.  At  any  rate, 
he  had  the  champagne  brought  to  the  library, 
and  there  he  told  me  that  he  had  not  believed 
such  a  thing  to  be  possible;  that  he  looked  upon 
me  in  a  new  light,  and  that  he  thought  my 
Ghoollah  must  be  stronger  than  Mitch's  Ghoollah. 
I  told  him  that  I  should  be  ashamed  of  myself 
if  it  was  n't;  and  then  I  asked  him  what  a 
Ghoollah  was.  Please  do  not  ask  me  if  I  have 
spelled  that  word  right.  I  am  spelling  it  by  ear, 
and  if  my  ear  for  Hindoo  is  as  bad  as  my  ear 
for  music,  I  have  probably  got  it  wrong.  It 
sounded  something  like  the  noise  that  pigeons 
make,  and  that  is  as  near  as  I  can  get  to  it. 
According  to  Billings,  it  was  Hindoo  for  my 
vital  essence  and  my  will  power  and  my  con 
science  and  my  immortal  soul  and  pretty  nearly 
every  other  spiritual  property  that  I  carried 
ss 


"Sbort  Sijes." 


around  in  my  clothes.  Everyone,  it  appeared, 
had  a  Ghoollah.  If  your  Ghoollah  was  stronger 
than  the  other  man's  Ghoollah,  you  bossed  the 
other  man.  If  you  had  a  good  and  happy 
Ghoollah,  you  were  good  and  happy.  If  you 
had  a  bad  Ghoollah,  you  were  bilious.  If  my 
Theosophy  is  wrong,  please  do  not  correct  it. 


I  prefer  it  wrong.  I  told  him  that  I  did  not 
see  that  having  a  Ghoollah  was  anything  more 
than  being  yourself,  but  he  said  it  was;  that 
folks  could  swap  Ghoollahs,  or  lend  them  out 
on  call  loans. 

Then  it  all  came  out.  That  was  the  reason 
that  he  was  driving  deeper  and  deeper  into 
Theosophy.  He  had  got  so  sick  of  Mitch  that, 


-y   Gbe  <Sboollab.   ff 

feeling  it  impossible  to  shake  off  his  burden,  he 
had  seized  upon  this  Ghoollah  idea  as  offering 
a  ray  of  hope.  He  was  now  trying  to  learn 
how  to  get  into  spiritual  communication  with 
somebody  —  anybody  —  else,  who  would  swap 
Ghoollahs  with  him  after  business  hours,  so  that 
they  could  ride-and-tie,  as  it  were,  and  give  his 
own  weary  Ghoollah  a  rest. 

"  Look  here,  Billings,"  I  said,  "  this  is  all 
rubbish.  Now,  I  'in  not  dealing  in  Ghoollahs, 
but  •  I  '11  tell  you  what  I  '11  do.  You  can  find 
some  sort  of  a  job  here  for  a  decent  young 
fellow,  and  I  '11  send  one  down  who  '11  be  grate 
ful  for  the  place  and  who  will  be  a  companion 
to  you.  It  's  Arthur  Penrhyn,  Dr.  Penrhyn's 
boy;  a  nice,  pleasant  young  fellow  —  just  what 
his  father  used  to  be,  you  remember  ?  He  was 
to  have  graduated  at  Union  this  year,  but  he 
broke  down  from  over-study.  That  's  the  kind 
of  Ghoollah  you  want,  and  he  '11  do  you  no 
end  of  good." 


This  happened  in  June.  I  had  never  ex 
pected  to  see  Billings's  mud-heap  again,  but  I 
saw  it  before  the  end  of  July.  I  went  there 
because  Billings  had  written  me  that  if  I  cared 
for  him  and  our  life-long  friendship,  and  for 
poor  Penrhyn's  boy  I  must  come  at  once.  He 
could  not  explain  by  letter  what  the  matter  was. 

It  added  to  my  natural  concern  when,  on 
my  arrival,  Billings  hurried  me  into  the  library 
and  I  found  it  as  theosophic  as  ever.  I  had 
hoped  that  that  nonsense  was  ended.  But  worse 
was  to  come. 

57 


/Bbore  "Sbort  Sijes." 


"  When  you  were  here  before,"  said  Bil 
lings,  impressively,  without  having  once  men 
tioned  champagne,  "  you  scoffed  at  a  light 
which  you  could  n't  see.  Now,  my  friend,  I 
am  going  to  let  you  see  it  with  your  own  eyes, 
and  you  shall  tell  me  whether  or  no  you  are 
convinced  that  it  is  possible  for  one  human 
being  to  exchange  his  entity  with  another.  If 
I  have  brought  you  here  on  a  wild  goose  chase, 
I  am  willing  to  have  you  procure  a  judicial  ex 
amination  into  my  sanity,  and 
I  will  abide  the  issue." 
He  spoke  with  so  much 
quiet  gravity  that  he 
made  me  feel  creepy. 
"See  here,  old 
man,"  I  said;  "do 
you  mean  to  tell  me 
that  you  have  suc 
ceeded  in  pairing 
off  with  any  other 
fellow's  Ghoollah,  or 
Woollah,  or  whatever  i't  is  ?  " 

"No,"  he  said,  coloring  a  little;  "it  's  not 
I.  It  's  —  it  's  —  it  's  —  in  fact,  it  's  that  boy 
Penrhyn." 

"What  the  deuce  do  you  mean?"  I  de 
manded. 

"  I  mean  that  Arthur  Penrhyn  has  changed, 
or,  rather,  is  changing  his  spiritual  essence  with 
another  man." 

"Indeed,"  said  I;  "and  who  's  the  other 
man?" 

"  Randolph  Mitchel,"  said  Billings. 
"Mitch?" 


^    Cbe  (Bboollab.    v 

"Mitch!" 

There  is  no  need  of  describing  the  rest  of 
that  interview.  You  have  probably  met  the  man 
who  believes  that  the  spirit  of  his  grandmother 
came  out  of  the  cabinet  and  shook  hands  with 
him.  You  can  probably  imagine  how  you  would 
talk  to  that  man  if  he  had  brought  you  eight 
hundred  miles  to  tell  you  about  it.  That  is  what 
happened  in  Billings's  library  that  afternoon,  and 
it  ended,  of  course,  in  our  calling  each  other 
"old  man"  a  great  many  times  over,  and  in  my 
agreeing  to  stay  to  the  end  of  the  week,  and  in 
Billings  giving  me  his  word  of  honor  not  to 
open  his  mouth  on  the  subject  unless  at  the  end 
of  that  time  I  asked  him  to  and  admitted  that  he 
was  right  in  sending  for  me.  And  then  Billings 
did  something  that  knocked  my  consciousness  of 
superiority  clean  out  of  me,  and  gave  a  severe 
shock  to  my  confidence.  He  offered  to  bet  me 
five  hundred  dollars  to  anything  that  would  make 
it  interesting  on  that  contingency,  and  he  called 
me  down  and  down  till  I  had  to  compromise  on 
a  bet  of  fifty  dollars  even.  I  have  met  many 
men  in  the  course  of  my  life  who  believed  in 
various  spook-religions,  but  that  was  the  first  and 
only  time  that  I  ever  met  a  man  who  would  back 
his  faith  with  a  cold  money  bet. 


By  way  of  changing  the  subject,  we  strolled 
down  to  the  quarry.  It  was  even  hotter  than 
before,  and  it  smelt  worse,  and  I  did  not  wonder 
that  it  had  driven  poor  old  Billings  to  Theosophy. 
It  was  a  scene  of  interesting  activity,  but  it  could 


•y    dfcore  "Sbort  Sijes."    V 

not  be  called  pleasant.  I  have  a  great  respect 
for  the  dignity  of  labor,  but  I  think  labor  looks 
more  dignified  with  its  shirt  on  than  when  re 
duced  to  a  lone  pair  of  breeches. 

I  was  about  to  make  a  motion  to  return  to 
the  house,  when  suddenly  a  string  of  peculiarly 
offensive  oaths,  uttered  in  a  shrill  angry  voice, 
drew  my  attention  to  a  heavy  wire  rope  which  a 
gang  of  men  were  hauling  across  my  path. 
Looking  up  I  saw,  as  well  as  I  could  see  any 
thing,  against  the  dazzling  background  of  the 
hill,  a  short,  insignificant-looking  figure  perched 
on  a  rock,  from  whence  it  directed,  with  many 
gesticulations  and  an  abounding  stream  of  pro 
fanity,  the  operations  of  the  toiling,  grunting, 
straining  creatures  who  dragged  at  the  ponderous 
cable.  Its  operations  seemed  to  be  conducted 
with  more  vehemence  than  judgement,  and  two 
or  three  times  the  rope  was  on  the  edge  of  slip 
ping  back  into  the  pit  behind,  when  it  was  saved 
by  the  men's  quick  response  to  some  directions 
given  in  a  low,  strong  voice  by  a  man  who  stood 
in  my  rear.  Some  little  hitch  occurred  after  a 
minute  or  two,  and  the  small  figure,  in  an  access 
of  rage,  rushed  down  from  the  rock,  and,  shower 
ing  imprecations  all  around,  leaped  in  among  the 
workmen,  pushing,  shoving  and  cuffing,  and  after 
considerable  trouble  finally  got  them  to  doing 
what  he  wanted.  I  heard  the  heavier  voice 
behind  me  utter  half-aloud  an  expression  of  an 
noyance  and  disgust.  Then  the  little  figure 
passed  me,  running  back  to  its  rock,  and  hailed 
me  as  it  passed. 

"Hello,  Governor!"  it  said;  "you  here? 
See  you  when  I  get  this  job  done ! " 


"Billings,"  said  I,  "who  on  earth  is  that?" 

"Arthur  Penrhyn,"  said  Billings.  I  looked 
again  and  saw  that  it  was.  Then  I  turned  round 
and  saw  behind  me  the  gigantic  form  of  Mitch. 
He,  too,  spoke  to  me  as  I  passed,  and  with  a 
look  of  simple  pleasure  in  his  face  that  made  it 
seem  absolutely  strange  to  me. 

"Glad  to  see  you,  Sir,"  he  said. 

Sir! 


"  It  's  a  most  remarkable  case  altogether," 
said  Billings,  who  had  got  back  to  his  normal 
self,  and  had  brought  out  the  champagne. 
"When  that  boy  came  here  he  was  just  as 
you  described  him  —  just  like  his  poor  father 
in  the  days  when  we  first  knew  each  other. 
He  brooded  a  little  too  much,  and  seemed  dis- 

6f 


"Short  Sijcs."    ^ 

contented ;  but,  considering  his  disappointment 
at  college,  that  was  natural  enough.  Well,  do 
you  know,  I  believe  it  's  he  that  's  doing  the 
whole  thing,  and  that  he  is  effecting  the  substi 
tution  for  his  own  ends,  though  I  don't  know 
what  they  are." 

"  Perhaps,"  I  suggested,  "  he  wants  his 
Ghoollah  to  get  the  job  away  from  Mitch's 
Ghoollah." 

"Ahem!"  said  Billings,  looking  a  little  em 
barrassed  ;  "  I  —  in  fact,  I  Ve  discovered  that 
the  best  Pundits  do  not  use  that  word.  It 
ought  to  be — " 

Here  Billings  gave  me  the  correct  word ; 
but  I  draw  the  line  at  Ghoollah,  and  Ghoollah 
it  stays  while  1  arn  telling  this  story.  \ 

"  He  had  n't  been  here  a  week  before  I 
noticed  that  he  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  Mitch 
all  the  time  they  were  together.  He  looked  at 
him  as  though  he  were  actually  trying  to  absorb 
him.  Before  long,  I  saw  that  Mitch  began  to 
be  troubled  under  that  steady  gaze.  He  seemed 
at  first  angry,  then  distressed,  and  he  had  long 
fits  of  silence.  His  boisterousness  has  been  van 
ishing  steadily;  but  it  is  not  sullenness  that  he 
displays  —  on  the  contrary,  I  have  never  known 
him  so  gentle.  He  is  just  as  efficient  in  his 
duties,  without  being  so  extremely  —  demonstra 
tive  as  he  used  to  be.  And  as  for  that  other 
boy,  who  probably  had  never  uttered  a  profane 
word  in  his  life,  or  spoken  rudely  to  any  human 
being  —  well,  you  heard  him  to-day !  " 

I  made  up  my  mind  to  try  to  drink  fifty 
dollars'  worth  of  Billings's  champagne  before  the 
end  of  the  week  to  even  up  on  my  bef;  and, 


(fcbooitab.    ^f 

as  the  days  went  on,  each  new  development 
only  served  to  urge  me  to  greater  assiduity  in 
the  task.  The  spirit  of  Big  Mitch  looked  out  of 
little  Arthur  Penrhyn's  insolent  eyes,  spoke  out 
of  his  foul  mouth,  and  showed  itself  even  in 
tricks  of  gesture  and  carriage,  and  in  lines  of 
facial  expression.  And  Big  Mitch,  though  his 
huge,  uncouth  frame  and  coarse  lineaments  lent 
themselves  but  ill  to  the  showing  of  it,  carried 
within  him  a  new  spirit  of  gentleness  and  hu 
mility.  We  saw  little  of  him,  for  after  work 
hours  he  kept  persistently  to  his  room.  But 
once,  late  at  night,  seeing  him,  through  his  open 
door,  asleep  over  a  book,  I  stepped  softly  in 
and  looked  over  his  big  shoulders  at  the  half- 
dozen  volumes  that  littered  his  table.  They 
were  college  text-books,  and  on  the  fly-leaf  of 
each  one  was  the  name  of  Arthur  Penryhn. 


I  had  packed  my  valise,  and  was  looking 
for  Billings  to  pay  him  his  fifty  dollars,  when 
Big  Mitch  came  out  of  his  room  —  it  was  the 
noon  hour  —  and  he  asked  me  for  the  favor  of 
a  few  words. 

"  I  am  ashamed  to  trouble  you,  sir,"  he 
said,  "but  if  you  could  help  me  to  get  any  sort 
of  a  job  in  New  York,  or  anywhere  else,  I  'd 
be  more  thankful  than  I  could  tell  you.  I  can 
afford  to  take  almost  any  sort  of  a  place  where 
there  's  a  future,  for  I  am  pretty  well  ahead  of 
the  game  financially,  and  I  've  earned  my  in 
terest  in  this  concern.  And  it  's  in  such  shape 
now  that  Mr.  Billings  can  get  along  without  me." 
6s 


"  But,  my  dear  boy,"  I  said,  "  why  do  you 
want  to  go  ?  " 

Big  Mitch  frowned  and  fidgeted  nervously ; 
then  he  exploded. 

"  I  '11  give  it  to  you  straight,"  he  said.  "It 's 
that  Penrhyn  pup.  When  he  first  came  here  I 
thought  I  was  just  about  the  nicest  little  man 
on  God's  footstool.  I  was  as  contented  with 
myself  as  a  basket  of  eggs.  I  knew  it  all.  I 
was  so  sharp  you  could  cut  glass  with  me. 
I  was  the  only  real  sport  in  the  outfit.  See? 
And  I  'd  got  a  roving  commission  to  jump  on 
people's  necks.  Well,  you  know  what  I  was. 
And  I  liked  myself.  See?" 

"But?"  I  began.      "Arthur  Penrhyn — " 

"  So  did  he !  I  don't  believe  any  one  in 
the  world  was  ever  stuck  on  me  before,  but  he 


ftbe  (Bboollab. 


was.  That  little  ape  had  n't  been  here  a  week 
before  he  began  to  do  everything  he  saw  me 
do,  and  pretty  soon  he  had  me  down  so  fine 
that  he  might  have  been  my  twin-brother,  if 
we  ever  had  such  runts  in  our  family.  Well, 
I  began  to  sour  on  the  show.  Understand  ?  I 
could  see  for  myself  it  was  n't  pretty.  Well, 
one  day  I  came  around  a  corner,  and  there 
was  that  baboon  sassing  back  to  old  man  Bil 
lings.  I  was  just  going  to  pick  him  up  and 
break  his  neck,  when  I  felt  kind  of  sick  at  my 
stomach,  and  I  says  to  myself,  <  You  swine ! 
that  's  the  way  you  Ve  been  treat 
ing  that  white  man !  How  do 
you  like  yourself  now  ? '  ': 

Big    Mitch    clutched 
desperately   at   his   rum 
pled  hair. 

"  I  'm  going  to  be 
a  gentleman,"  he  grunt 
ed,  "  if  I  have  to  chew 
gravel  to  do  it.  I  '11  do 
it,  though,  and  I  '11 
show  up  some  day  and 
surprise  the  old  man 
before  he  cashes  in  his 
last  lung.  But  if  I 
don't  get  a  fresh  start 
pretty  soon,  I  '11  do 
something  to  that  Pen- 
rhyn  monkey  that  won't 
be  any  young  lady's  danc 
ing-class,  you  bet  your  boots  ! " 


6J> 


"Short  Sixes." 


I  told  Billings.  First  he  paid  me  fifty  dol 
lars.  Then  he  made  a  bonfire  of  all  his  theo- 
sophic  outfit.  Then  he  went  down  to  the  quarry 
and  announced  that  he  was  his  own  boss  from 
that  time  on  ;  and  by  way  of  a  sample  demonstra 
tion  he  called  up  Arthur  Penrhyn  and  knocked 
the  everlasting  Ghoollah  out  of  him.  Then  he 
came  back  to  the  house  and  looked  at  the 
thermometer. 

To  this  day,  I  never  see  champagne  without 
thinking  of  drinking  some. 


Of- 


CUTWATER    OF    SENECA. 


CUTWATER     OF    SENECA. 


^\HE  story  I  am  about  to  tell  is  hardly 
Bt_/  a  story  at  all.  Perhaps  I  had  bet 
ter  call  it  a  report,  and  let  it  go 
at  that,  with  a  word  of  explana- 
Q  tion  as  to  how  I  came  to  report  it. 
In  1884  a  new  state  survey  and 
a  new  re-districting  act  between  them 
cut  off  about  one-quarter  of  a  north 
ern  timber  county  close  to  the  Canada 
border,  and  delivered  over  the  severed 
portion  to  its  neighbor  on  the  southerly  side,  a 
thickly  settled  county  with  several  large  towns 
and  with  important  manufacturing  interests.  This 
division  left  the  backwoods  county  temporarily 
without  a  judiciary  or  a  place  of  holding  court. 
But  the  act  provided  for  the  transfer  of  all  pend 
ing  cases  to  the  courts  of  the  more  fortunate 
county  down  below,  and  gave  the  backwoods 
District  Attorney  the  privilege  of  trying  in  the 
said  courts  such  cases  as  might  arise  in  his  own 
bailiwick  during  his  term  of  office  then  current. 

No  such  cases  occurred,  however,  until  the 
period  stated  by  the  act  was  nearly  at  an  end, 
when  the  District  Attorney  of  the  mutilated 
county  came  down  to  Metropole,  our  County 
Seat,  to  try  a  murder  case.  As  our  backwoods 


•^    Cutwater  of  Seneca.    ^ 

neighbors  were  a  somewhat  untrammelled,  un 
couth  and  free-and-easy  folk  at  their  quietest,  his 
coming  naturally  attracted  some  curious  interest, 
especially  after  it  became  known  that  he  had 
come  into  town  sitting  side  by  side  with  the 
prisoner  in  the  smoking-car,  and  discussing  poli 
tics  with  him.  His  name  was  Judge  Cutwater, 
and  he  was  generally  spoken  of  as  Cutwater  of 
Seneca  —  perhaps  because  he  had  at  some  time 
been  a  Judge  in  Seneca,  New  York;  perhaps 


because  there  was  no  comprehensible  reason  for 
so  calling  him,  any  more  than  there  was  compre 
hensible  reason  for  various  and  sundry  other 
things  about  him. 

He  was  a  man  who  might  have  been  sixty 


"Sbort  Sijes."    V 

or  seventy  or  eighty.  Indeed,  he  might  have 
been  a  hundred,  and  he  may  be  now,  for  all  I 
know.  But  he  was  lean,  wiry,  agile,  supple  and 
full  of  eternal  youth.  He  might  have  been 
good-looking  if  he  had  cared  to  be,  for  he  had  a 
fine  old-fashioned  eagle  face,  and  a  handsome, 
flowing  gray  moustache,  the  grace  of  which  was 
spoiled  by  a  straggling  thin  wisp  of  chin  whiskers, 
and  a  patch  of  gray  stubble  on  each  cheek. 
And,  of  course,  he  chewed  tobacco  profusely  and 
diffusely,  and  in  his  long,  grease-stained,  shiny 
broadcloth  coat,  his  knee-bagged  breeches,  his 
big  slouch  hat,  and  his  eye-glasses  with  heavy 
black  horn  rims,  suspended  from  his  neck  by  a 
combination  of  black  ribbon  and  pink  string,  he 
looked  what  he  was,  as  clearly  as  though  he  had 
been  labelled  —  the  representative  of  the  Majesty 
of  the  Law  among  a  backwoods  people  out  of 
odds  with  fortune,  desperate,  disheartened,  down 
on  their  luck,  and  lost  to  self-respect. 

He  said  he  was  a  good  Democrat,  and  I 
think  he  was.  He  saw  the  prisoner  locked  up, 
bade  him  a  kindly  "  Good  night,  Jim,"  and 
ordered  the  jailer  to  let  him  have  all  the  whiskey 
he  wanted.  Then  Judge  Cutwater  called  on  his 
brother  of  the  local  bench,  greeting  him  with  a 
ceremonious  and  stately  dignity  that  absolutely 
awed  the  excellent  old  gentleman,  and  dropping 
an  enormous  Latin  quotation  on  him  as  he  de 
parted,  just  by  way  of  utterly  flattening  him  out. 
After  that  he  strolled  over  to  the  hotel,  grasped 
the  landlord  warmly  by  the  hand,  and  in  the  space 
of  half  an  hour  told  him  a  string  of  stories  of 
such  startling  novelty,  humor  and  unfitness  for 
publication  that,  as  the  landlord  enthusiastically 
70 


*y   Cutwater  of  Seneca.    ^ 

declared,  the  recent  Drummers'  Convention  could 
not  be  said  to  be  "in  it"  with  the  old  man. 

The  next  day  the  case  of  Jim  Adsum  for  the 
murder  of  his  mate  in  a  logging  camp  was  called 
in  court;  and  District  Attorney  Cutwater's  trying 
of  it  was  a  circus  that  nearly  drove  old  Judge 


Potter  into  an  apoplectic  fit,  and  kept  the  whole 
court  room  in  what  both  those  eminent  jurists 
united  —  it  was  the  only  thing  they  did  unite  in 
—  in  characterizing  as  a  disgraceful  uproar. 

And  yet,  somehow,  by  four  o'clock  he  had 
evidence  enough  in  to  convict  the  prisoner;  the 
defence  had  not  a  single  exception  worth  the 
noting,  and  was  rattled  as  to  its  state  of  mind; 
and  that  weird  old  prosecutor,  who  repeatedly 
spoke  of  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  as  "Jim,"  and 
made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  they  had  been 
bosom  friends  and  companions  in  the  forest,  had 
it 


*V   dfcore  "Sbort  Sixes."    V 

worked  up  a  case  that  made  the  best  lawyers  in 
the  room  stare  at  him  with  looks  of  puzzled  sur 
prise  and  amazed  respect. 

When  he  rose  to  sum  up,  he  slowly  and 
thoughtfully  drew  a  tin  tobacco-box  from  his 
trousers'  pocket,  opened  it  and  deposited  there 
in  his  quid,  after  passing  his  right  hand,  with 
a  rapid  and  skillful  motion,  across  his  gray 
moustache.  This  feat  he  performed  with  a  dig 
nity  that  at  once  fascinated  and  awed  the  be 
holder.  Then  he  began  : 

"  Your  Honor  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury : 
It  is  a  rare  and  a  seldom  occurrence  that  a 
prosecuting  official,  sworn  to  exert  his  utmost 
energies  to  further  the  execution  of  the  law,  is 
called  upon  to  invoke  the  awful  vengeance  of 
that  law,  and  the  retribution  demanded  by  out 
raged  humanity,  upon  the  head  of  one  under 
whose  blanket  he  has  lain  within  the  cold 
hollows  of  the  snow -clad  woods  ;  with  whom 
he  has  shared  the  meagre  food  of  the  pioneer; 
side  by  side  with  whom  he  has  struggled  for 
his  rights  and  his  liberties,  at  the  daily  and 
hourly  risk  of  his  life,  with  half-breed  Injuns 
and  with  half -breeder  Kanucks.  Sech,  gentle 
men,  is  the  duty  that  lies  before  this  servant  of 
the  Law  to- day ;  and  sech,  gentlemen,  is  the 
duty  that  will  be  done,  without  fear  or  favor, 
without  consideration  of  friendship  or  hallowed 
association ;  and  this  man,  Jim  Adsum,  knows 
it,  knowing  me,  as  well  as  he  ever  knew  any 
thing  in  the  fool  life  that  is  now  drawing  to 
a  close. 

"  You  have  heard,  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury, 
the  evidence  that  has  been  laid  before  you  on 


•^    Cutwater  ot  Seneca.    ^ 

the  part  of  the  prosecution,  and  you  have  heard 
the  attempt  made  by  the  learned  counsel  for 
the  defence  to  discredit  that  evidence  in  his 
eloquent  but  frivolous  opening  on  behalf  of  his 
unfortunate  client.  I  trust  that  you  have  given 
to  the  one  the  appreciative  attention  which  it 
deserves,  and  that  you  have  let  the  other  slip, 
naked  and  shivering,  into  the  boundless  oblivion 
of  your  utter  contempt. 

"  What,  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury,  are  the 
circumstances  of  this  case?  We  learn  by  the 
testimony  for  the  people  that  on  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  November  a  party  of  seven  men 
started  off  for  the  upper  waters  of  the  Sagus 
River,  some  to  join  a  lumber  camp,  and  others, 
among  them  this  defendant,  James  Adsum,  and 
his  victim,  Peter  Biaux,  a  Frenchman,  in  the 
pursuit  of  their  usual  vocation  —  which  may  be 
said  to  be  hunting  for  fur-skins,  on  general  prin 
ciples.  This  party  of  seven  men  is  snowed  up, 
and  goes  into  camp  at  the  junction  of  Sagus 
and  First  Rivers,  and  for  eleven  days  remains 
thus  snow-bound  in  that  icy  solitude,  the  only 
human  beings  within  hundreds  of  miles. 

"  There  has  been,  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury, 
as  has  been  shown  to  you,  an  old  grudge  be 
tween  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  and  the  deceased ; 
a  grudge  of  many  years  standing.  There  is  no 
use  of  going  into  the  origin  of  that  grudge. 
Some  says  it  was  cards;  some,  business;  some, 
drink ;  and  I  personally  know  that  it  was  a 
woman ;  but  that  makes  no  difference  before 
this  present  tribunal.  Let  it  be  enough  that 
there  was  bad  blood  between  the  men;  that  it 
broke  forth,  as  two  witnesses  have  told  you,  day 
73 


wnte'p:  tv-^la 

S7//1.I-*1.  :'l-~-  'wirii...,      ;ft*  ^-^- 


after  day,  within  the  confines  of  that  little 
camp  crowded  within  its  snow-bound  arena  in 
the  heart  of  the  immeasurable  solitudes  of  the 
wintry  forest.  Again  and  again  the  other  mem 
bers  of  the  party  intervened  to  make  peace  be 
tween  them.  At  last,  upon  the  eighth  day  of 
December,  matters  come  to  a  crisis,  and  a  per 
sonal  encounter  ensued  between  the  two  men, 
in  the  course  of  which  the  deceased,  being  a 
Frenchman,  is  badly  mauled,  and  Jim,  here, 
being  without  his  knife,  through  carelessness,  is 
correspondingly  cut.  The  two  are  separated ; 
and,  for  fear  of  further  mischief,  the  Frenchman, 
is  sent  down  the  river  to  fish  through  the  ice, 
and  the  prisoner  is  kept  in  the  camp.  That 
night,  by  order  of  the  head  of  the  party,  he 
sleeps  between  two  men.  These  two  men  have 
told  you  their  story  —  how  one  of  them  woke 
in  the  night  at  the  sound,  as  he  thought,  of 
a  distant  shot,  and  became  aware  that  Adsum 


^    Cutwater  of  Seneca,    ^r 

was  no  longer  at  his  side  —  how,  reaching  out 
his  hand,  he  grasped  another  hand,  and  taking 
it  for  the  prisoner's,  was  reassured  and  fell  asleep 
again  —  and  how,  weeks  afterward,  he  first  found 
out  that  that  hand  was  the  hand  of  the  man  who 
had  been  detailed  to  sleep  on  the  other  side  of 
the  prisoner.  You  have  heard,  gentlemen,  how 
these  two  men  awoke  in  the  morning  to  find 
Adsum  lying  between  them,  shaking  and  shiver 
ing  with  a  chill  under  his  heavy  blanket.  You 
have  heard  of  the  long  and  unsuccessful  search 
for  Peter  Biaux,  and  of  the  accidental  discovery 
of  his  mangled  body  three  months  later,  under 
the  ice  of  the  Sagus  River,  at  a  point  ten  miles 
below  the  camp.  You  have  heard  how  each  of 
these  witnesses  was  haunted  by  a  suspicion  that 
he  had  unwittingly  betrayed  the  trust  reposed  in 
him,  and  how,  at  last,  when  they  spoke  together 
of  their  watch  on  that  fatal  night,  their  suspicion 
flashed,  illumined  with  the  fire  of  heaven's  truth, 
into  a  hijjus  certainty. 

"  You  have  been  told,  gentlemen,  that  the 
case  of  the  people  rests  upon  circumstantial  evi 
dence.  It  does,  gentlemen;  it  does;  and  the 
circumstances  are  all  there.  You  have  heard 
how  when  these  two  witnesses  exchanged  notes, 
they  came  to  one  conclusion,  and  that  is  the 
conclusion  to  which  I  shall  bring  your  minds. 
The  witness  Duncan  said  to  the  witness  Atwood : 
1  Jim  done  it !  '  The  witness  Atwood  replied  to 
him:  'Jim  done  it!'  And  I  say  to  you,  Gen 
tlemen  of  the  Jury:  'Jim  done  it!'  And  you 
done  it,  Jim;  you  know  you  did! 

"  And  now,  gentlemen,  what  sort  of  a  man 
is  this  prisoner  at  the  bar?  We  must  consider 


him  for  the  purposes  of  this  trial  as  two  men 
—  on  the  one  hand,  as  the  brave,  upright  and 
courageous  trapper  which  he  has  on  numberless 
occasions,  to  my  personal  knowledge,  shown 
himself  to  be  —  and  I  may  say  to  you,  Gentle 
men  of  the  Jury,  that  I  woald  not  be  here 
talking  to  you  now  if  he  had  not  a-been  on 
one  or  two  occasions.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
Gentlemen  of  the  Jury,  I  am  going  to  show 
him  to  you  as  the  red-handed  murderer  I  al 
ways  told  him  he  would  be  if  he  gave  the  rein 
to  his  violent  passions.  Besides,  the  darn  fool  's 
drunk  half  the  time. 

"  You  have  been  told,  gentlemen,  by  the 
learned  counsel  for  the  defence,  that  this  crime 
was  committed  in  a  rough  country,  where  deeds 
of  violence  are  so  common  that  it  is  possible 
that  this  man  may  have  died  by  another  hand, 
murdered  by  a  totally  different  person,  for  totally 
different  causes  and  reasons,  and  under  circum 
stances  totally  unconnected  with  the  circum 
stances  set  forth  in  this  case.  Gentlemen,  it  is 
a  rough  country  —  rough  as  the  speech  of  its 
70 


Cutwater  or  Seneca. 


children,  rough  as  their  food  and  fare,  rough  as 
the  storms  they  face,  and  nigh  as  rough  as  the 
whiskey  they  drink.  But  it  is  a  country,  gen 
tlemen,  where  every  man  knows  his  neighbor's 
face  and  his  neighbor's  heart,  where  the  dangers 
and  privations  of  life  draw  men  closer  together 
than  they  are  drawn  in  great  cities  like  this 
beautiful  town  of  yours,  which  is  honored  by 
the  citizens  I  see  sot  before  me  in  this  jury 
box.  In  that  great  snow- 
clad  wilderness,  on  that 
bitter  eighth  of  De 
cember,  with  the 
thermometer  thirty 
degrees  below  zero, 
I  can  assure  you, 
gentlemen,  that  there 
was  no  casual,  acci 
dental,  extempora 
neous  murderer  lil- 
ly-twiddling  around 
that  chilly  solitude, 
sauntering  among 
twenty  -  foot  snow 
drifts  for  the  pur 
pose  of  striking 
down  a  total  stranger 
with  nineteen  distinct 
and  separate  cuts,  and 

then  fading  away  into  nothingness  like  the  airy 
fabric  of  a  vision.  And  Jim  doing  nothing  all 
that  time?  Gentlemen,  the  contention  of  the 
counsel  ain't  sense/ 

"  Gentlemen,   I  wish   I   could  tell  you  that 
it  was  so.      I  wish  I  could  tell  you  so  for  Jim's 

77 


^   flbore  "Sbort  Stjes."    ^ 

sake.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  so  for  your  own 
sakes,  for  on  you  is  soon  to  rest  the  awful  yet 
proud  responsibility  of  deciding  that  a  fellow 
human  being's  life  is  forfeit  to  his  blood-guilti 
ness.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  so  for  my  own 
sake,  regarding  myself  as  a  friend  of  Jim's.' 
But  it  is  the  District  Attorney,  the  Prosecutor 
for  the  People,  that  you  must  listen  to  while  he 
tells  you  the  story  of  what  happened  that  night. 
"  It  was  half-past  eleven  of  that  night 
when  this  man  Adsum  arose.  How  do  I  know? 
Look  in  the  almanac  and  see  where  the  moon 
stood  at  half-past  eleven !  It  was  then  that  he 
slipped  from  between  his  two  guards  and  drew 
back  to  where  the  flickering  camp-fire  cast  the 
shadow  of  a  pine  tree  on  the  wall  of  snow  that 
shut  in  their  little  resting-place.  There  he  stood 
in  that  shadow  —  a  shadow  that  laid  on  his 
soul  and  on  his  face  —  and  waited  to  see  if 
one  of  his  comrades  stirred.  At  his  feet  lay 
the  two  men  that  had  been  set  to  guard  him, 
Jared  Duncan  and  Bill  Atwood.  Eb  Spence 
laid  over  the  way  with  his  feet  to  the  fire.  By 
him  laid  Sol  Geary  and  Kentucky  Wilson.  Why, 
Jim,  I  can  see  it  all  just  as  if  I  was  there! 
And  then  you  —  he  —  then,  Gentlemen  of  the 
Jury,  this  prisoner  at  the  bar,  slipped  from  that 
camp  where  his  companions  lay,  bound  to  him 
as  he  was  bound  to  them,  in  the  faith  of  com 
radeship;  and,  as  he  left  that  little  circle,  that 
spot  trodden  out  of  the  virgin  snow,  he  left 
behind  him  his  fidelity,  his  self-respect  and  his 
manhood;  his  mind  and  soul  and  heart  full  of 
the  black  and  devilish  thought  of  taking  by 
treacherous  surprise  the  life  of  a  comrade.  Up 
78 


^    Cutwater  of  Seneca.    +f 

to  that  hour,  his  spirit  had  harbored  no  sech 
evil  thought.  The  men  he  had  theretofore  killed 
—  and  I  am  not  saying,  gentlemen,  that  he  had 
not  killed  enough — had  been  killed  in  fair  and 
open  fight,  and  there  is  not  a  one  of  them  all 
but  will  be  glad  and  proud  to  meet  him  as 
gentleman  to  gentleman  at  the  Judgement  Day. 
But  now  it  was  with  murder  in  his  heart  —  base, 
cowardly,  faithless  murder  —  that  he  left  that 
camp;  it  was  with  murder  in  his  heart  that  he 


sneaked,  crouching  low,  down  where  the  heavy 
shadows  hid  the  margin  of  the  ice-bound  stream. 
It  was  with  murder  in  his  heart  that  he  laid 
himself  flat  upon  his  belly  on  the  ice  when  he 
came  within  two  rod  of  the  Beaver  Dam,  and 

79 


V   jflfcore  "Sbort  Sijes."    V 

worked  along,  keeping  ever  in  the  shadow  till 
he  come  down  to  where  that  Frenchman,  who, 
six  hours  before,  had  et  out  of  the  same  pan 
with  him,  stood  with  his  light  by  his  side,  gazing 
down  into  the  black  hole  in  the  ice  that  was  to 
be  the  mouth  of  his  grave  and  the  portal  of 
his  entrance  into  eternity.  Murder,  gentlemen, 
murder  nerved  his  arm  when  he  struck  out  that 
light  with  the  fur  cap  you  see  now  in  his  hand; 
and  murder's  self  filled  him  with  a  maniac's  rage 
as  he  rose  to  his  feet  and  shot  and  stabbed  the 
defenceless  back  of  his  unsuspecting  comrade. 
This,  gentlemen,  this  —  and  no  tale  of  a  prowling 
stranger — this,  gentlemen,  is  the  truth;  and  I 
will  appeal  to  the  prisoner,  himself,  gentlemen, 
to  bear  me  out.  Jim  Adsum,  you  can  lie  to  this 
Judge  and  you  can  lie  to  this  Jury;  you  can  lie 
to  your  neighbors  and  you  can  lie  to  your  own 
conscience;  but  you  can't  lie  to  old  man  Cut 
water,  and  you  know  it.  Now,  Jim,  was  not 
that  just  about  the  way  you  done  it?" 

And  Jim  nodded  his  head,  turned  the  fur 
cap  over  in  his  hands,  and  assented  quietly :  ' 

"Just  about." 

Twenty -five  minutes  later  the  Jury  went 
out,  and  Judge  Cutwater  stalked  slowly  and 
thoughtfully  over  to  the  prisoner,  and  touched 
him  on  the  shoulder. 

"  Jim,"  he  said,  meditatively,  "  if  I  know 
anything  about  juries,  and  I  think  I  do,  I  've 
hanged  you  on  that  talk  as  sure  as  guns.  Your 
man's  summing-up  did  n't  amount  to  pea-soup. 
I  'm  sorry,  of  course;  but  there  was  n't  no  way 
out  of  it  for  either  you  or  me.  However,  I  '11 
tell  you  what  I  '11  do.  My  term  as  District 
80 


Attorney  expires  to  -  morrow  at  twelve  ;  and,  if 
you  '11  send  that  fool  counsel  of  yours  round  to 
me  at  the  tahvern,  I  '11  show  him  how  to  drive 
a  horse  and  cart  through  the  law  in  this  case 
and  get  you  a  new  trial,  like  rolling  off  a  log." 
And  as  Mr.  Adsum  got  not  only  one  but 
three  new  trials  during  the  time  that  I  kept  track 
of  him,  I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  Judge 
Cutwater  of  Seneca  kept  his  promise  as  a  man,  as 
faithfully  as  he  performed  his  duty  as  a  prose 
cutor  for  the  people. 

81 


MR.    WICK'S    AUNT. 


MR.    WICK'S     AUNT. 


HE  Wick  family  had  run  the  usual 
course  of  families  for  many,  many 
years,  and  was  quite  old  and  re 
spectable  when  causes,  natural  and 
extraordinary,  none  of  them  being 
pertinent  to  this  statement,  reduced 
said  family  to  three  members,  viz : 
Miss  ANGELICA  SUDBURY  WICK, 
of  the  Boston  branch  of  the  family, 
who  lived  in  the  house  of  her  guard 
ian,  old  Jonas  Thatcher,  with  whom  we 
have  no  further  concern,  and  who  is  therefore 
to  be  considered  as  turned  down,  although  in 
his  day  he  was  a  highly  respected  leather  mer 
chant.  Miss  ANGELICA  WICK  was  fair  and  sweet 
and  good  up  to  the  last  requirement  of  young 
womanhood. 

MR.   WlNKELMAN    HEMPSTEAD    WlCK,    of   the 

Long  Island  branch  of  the  family,  a  distant 
cousin  of  the  young  lady,  and  a  young  man  of 
conscientious  mind,  an  accountant  by  profession, 
and  very  nearly  ready  to  buy  out  his  employer. 

MR.  AARON   BUSHWICK   WICK,   also   of  the 
Long    Island   branch   of  the   family,    the   grand- 
uncle  of  young  Winkelman,  who  had  brought  up 
the  young  man  in  his  own  house,  and  who  loved 
84 


's  Bunt.    ^ 

him  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world,  until, 
in  the  sixty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  he  fell  in  love 
with,  and  married  a  lady  named  Louisa  Nasmyth 
Pine,  whom  we  will  dismiss  from  consideration  as 
we  dismissed  the  old  leather  merchant,  although 
she  was  a  most  estimable  and  attractive  lady,  and 
did  fancy  embroidery  extremely  well.  Her  only 
concern  with  this  story  is  that  she  bore  the  elder 
Mr.  Wick  a  baby,  and  died  three  or  four  months 
subsequently.  But  that  was  enough ;  plenty ;  as 
much  as  was  necessary. 

The  way  that  marriage  came  about  was  this : 
old  Mr.  Wick  wanted  to  see  the  Wick  family  per 
petuated,  but  young  Mr.  Wick  was  one  of  those 
cautious,  careful,  particular  men  who  get  to  be 
old  bachelors  before  they  know  it.  No  girl  whom 
he  knew  was  quite  exactly  what  he  wanted.  If 
she  had  been,  she  would  have  been  too  good  for 
any  man  on  earth.  In  fact,  it  took  young  Mr. 
Wick  a  number  of  years  to  realize  that  any  way 
he  could  marry,  he  could  only  marry  a  human 
being  like  himself.  In  the  meanwhile  his  grand- 
uncle  grew  impatient;  and  finally  he  said  that  if 
Winkelman  did  n't  fix  on  a  girl  and  get  her  to 
agree  to  marry  him  by  the  first  of  next  January, 
he,  Aaron  Bushwick  Wick,  would  marry  some 
body  himself.  Miss  Louisa  Nasmyth  Pine,  being 
then  close  on  to  forty,  helped  him  to  get  under 
the  line  just  in  time  to  save  his  grand-nephew 
from  engaging  himself  to  an  ill-tempered  widow 
with  five  children  —  which  is  the  kind  of  woman 
that  those  particular  men  generally  pick  up  in  the 
end.  And  it  serves  them  right. 

And  so  this  marriage  brought  into  existence 
the  baby  —  BEATRICE  BRIGHTON  WICK. 


V   dfcore  "Sbort  sties."   -y 

Old  Mr.  Wick's  endeavors  to  hand  the  name 
of  Wick  down  to  posterity  were  crowned,  as  you 
see,  with  only  partial  success.      He  had  a  Wick, 
it  was  true,  but  it  was  a  Wick  that  would  be  put 
out  by  marriage.      He  found  himself 
obliged  to  fall  back  on   young 
Winkelman,     and    he    be 
thought  himself  of  the 
distant     cousin      in 
Boston.     He  knew 
nothing    of     her, 
but    he   reasoned 
that  if  she    were 
a   Wick,   she   must 
be      everything     that 

was  lovely  and  desirable;   and   so  he  said  to  his 
grand-nephew : 

"  Wink,  you  know  that  I  am  a  man  of  my 
word.  If  you  will  go  and  marry  that  girl,  and  if 
the  two  of  you  will  take  care  of  that  confounded 
baby,  who  is  crying  again,  while  I  put  in  three  or 
four  years  in  Europe  till  it  gets  to  some  sort  of  a 
rational  age,  I  will  buy  your  employer  out,  guar 
antee  you  what  is  necessary  for  you  to  live  on  in 
some  healthy  country  place  —  no  city  air  for  that 
child,  do  you  understand !  —  and  when  I  die  you 
'11  be  her  guardian  and  have  the  usufruct  of  her 
estate. and  be  residuary  legatee  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing." 

Winkelman  Wick  knew  that  his  grand-uncle 
was  a  man  of  his  word,  and  that  "  all  that  sort  of 
thing "  meant  a  very,  very  comfortable  sort  of 
thing,  for  the  old  gentleman  was  rich  and  had 
liberal  ideas,  and  drank  more  port  than  was  good 
for  him.  He  had  no  fancy  for  marrying  a  strange 

86 


girl,  but  he  thought  there  could  be  no  harm  in 
going  out  to  Boston  and  taking  a  look  at  his,  so 
far,  distant  cousin.  Under  pretense  of  wanting  to 
write  up  the  Wick  genealogy,  he  went  to  Boston, 
and  passed  some  time  under  Mr.  Thatcher's  hos 
pitable  roof.  He  found  Angelica  Wick  all  that 
his  fancy  might  have  painted  her  but  had  n't; 
and,  as  Mr.  Thatcher  had  six  daughters  of  his 
own,  all  of  them  older  than  Angelica,  and  none 
so  good-looking,  he  did  not  find  any  difficulty  in 
inducing  his  pretty  cousin  to  marry  him  —  and 
she  did  not  back  out  even  when  he  sprung  the 
baby  contract  on  her.  She  said  that  she  was  a 
true  woman  and  that  she  would  stand  by  him, 
but  that  she  thought  it  might  be  a  little  awkward. 
Feminine  intuition  is  a  wonderful  thing.  When  it 
is  right,  it  is  apt  to  be  right. 

The  elder  Mr.  Wick  was  as  good  as  his 
word,  —  only,  as  is  often  the  case  with  people 
who  pride  themselves  upon  being  as  good  as  their 
word,  he  took  his  own  word  too  seriously.  He 
died  of  apoplexy  shortly  after  landing  at  Liver- 
s? 


y    /Bborc  "Sbort  Stjes."    -y 

pool.  His  will,  however,  was  probated  in  New 
York,  and  thus  escaped  a  legacy  tax.  The  will 
fully  carried  out  every  promise  he  had  made  to 
his  young  kinsman,  but  he  had  drawn  it  to  follow 
absolutely  the  terms  of  his  proposition.  He  had 
never  for  an  instant  contemplated  the  possibility 
of  his  dying  before  he  wanted  to  —  people  who 
make  their  wills  very  rarely  do  —  and  he  had  so 
drawn  the  document  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Winkel- 
man  Wick  could  come  into  their  inheritance  only 
after  carrying  out  their  part  of  the  contract,  which 
was  to  take  care  of  their  aunt,  baby  Beatrice 
Brighton  Wick,  for  the  space  of  four  years,  during 
which  Mr.  Aaron  Bushwick  Wick  had  intended, 
without  consideration  of  the  designs  of  Divine 
Providence,  to  sojourn  in  Europe. 

This  brings  the  situation  exactly  down  to 
bed-rock.  On  the  tenth  of  April,  eighteen  hun 
dred  and  tumty-tum,  Mr.  Winkelman  Wick  and 
Miss  Angelica  Wick  were  married  in  the  old 
Wick  house  on  Montague  Street,  Brooklyn.  On 
the  twenty-fifth  of  April  Mr.  Aaron  Bushwick 
Wick  ended  his  journey  across  the  Atlantic  at 
the  Port  of  Liverpool,  England.  On  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  April  he  started  on  that  other  jour 
ney  for  which  your  heirs  pay  your  passage  money 
—  and  he  certainly  was  not  happy  in  his  start 
ing  place.  On  the  twenty-eighth  of  the  same 
month  young  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wick  knew  the  terms 
of  their  grand-uncle's  will;  and  on  the  thirtieth 
the  old  Wick  mansion  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
trustees,  and  the  young  Wicks  were  in  a  hotel  in 
charge  of  their  baby-aunt,  Beatrice,  who  was  her 
self  in  charge  of  an  aged  Irishwoman,  whose  feet 
were  decidedly  more  intelligent  than  her  brain. 

88 


That  is  one  of  the  beauties  of  Ireland.  You 
can  get  every  variety  of  human  being  there 
from  a  cherub  to  a  chimpanzee. 

They  were  very  comfortable  in  the  hotel/ 
and  would  have  liked  to  stay  there,  but  that 
awful  contract  had  as  many  ways  of  making  it 
self  disagreeable  as  an  octopus  has.  They  had 
pledged  themselves,  with  and  for  the  benefit  of 
the  baby,  to  provide  a  suitable  place  in  the 
country  without  unreasonable  delay.  Their  law 
yer  informed  them  that  reasonable  delay  meant 
three  weeks  and  not  one  day  more.  As  their 
contract  began  on  the  tenth  of  April,  they  had, 
therefore,  one  day  left  to  them  to  carry  out  th's 
provision.  Moreover,  the  contract,  after  denning 
the  phrase  "a  suitable  country  place"  in  terms 
that  would  have  fitted  a  selling  advertisement  of 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  went  on  to  specify  that  no 
place  should  be  considered  suitable  that  was  not 
at  least  forty  miles  from  any  city  of  twenty  thou- 


*y*    flbore  "Sbort  Sijee."    ^ 

sand  inhabitants,  or  upward.  When  Mr.  Aaron 
Bushwick  Wick  wanted  pure  country  air  for  a 
baby,  he  wanted  it  pure.  If  he  could,  he  would 
probably  have  had  it  brought  in  sealed  bottles. 

Picking  a  place  of  residence  for  four  long 
years  is  not  an  agreeable  task  under  conditions 
such  as  these,  especially  to  a  young  couple 
prematurely  saddled  with  parental  cares,  and 
equipped  with  only  twenty  days  of  experience 
in  the  matrimonial  state.  They  discussed  the 
situation  for  hours  on  end.  Mrs.  Wick  wept, 
and  Mr.  Wick  contributed  more  profanity  than 
is  generally  used  by  a  green  husband.  They 
even  asked  the  Irish  nurse  if  she  could  not  sug 
gest  some  suitable  place,  and  they  stated  the 
whole  situation  to  her  very  clearly  and  care 
fully.  She  thought  a  while,  and  then  suggested 
Ballymahon,  County  Longford,  Ireland.  How- 
*ever,  indirectly,  she  assisted  them  to  solve  the 
problem.  Mr.  Wick  told  her  to  go  to  Jericho ; 
and  Mrs.  Wick  suddenly  brightened  up  and  said: 

"  Why,  that  's  so,  Winkelman  ! " 

Mr.  Wick  stared  in  horror  at  his  wife.  Was 
the  sweet  young  thing  going  crazy  under  the 
strain  ?  But  no ;  Mrs.  Wick  was  looking  as 
bright  as  a  rose  after  an  April  shower,  and  she 
grew  brighter  and  brighter  as  she  stood  think 
ing  in  silence,  nodding  her  pretty  head  affirma 
tively,  pursing  her  lips,  and  checking  off  the 
various  stages  of  her  thought  with  her  finger 
tip  on  her  cheek.  Finally  she  said : 

"And  you  could  use  the  little  room  for  a 
dressing  room.  Yes,  dear,  I  'm  quite  certain  it 
will  do  beautifully." 

After  a  while  Mr.  Wick  convinced  his  wife 

go 


^   d&r.  TlGltcfc'0  Bunt.    <y 

that  he  was  not  a  mind-reader,  and  then  he 
got  some  information.  Of  course  she  did  not 
stay  convinced  —  no  woman  ever  did.  All 
women  think  that  the  mechanism  of  their 
thought  is  visible  like  a  model  in  a  glass  case. 

Mrs.  Wick  had  forgotten  that  she  herself 
owned  a  country  house.  This  was  more  ex 
cusable  than  it  seems  on  the  face  of  it,  for  she 
had  never  seen  the  house,  nor  had  she  ever 
expected  to  see  it.  In  fact,  it  was  hardly  to 
be  called  a  house;  it  was  only  a  sort  of  bunga 
low  or  pavilion  which  had  once  belonged  to  a 
club  of  sportsmen,  and  which  her  father  had 
taken  for  a  bad  debt.  It  was  situated  in  the 
village  of  Jericho,  of  which  she  knew  nothing 
more  than  that 'her  father  had  said  that  it  was 
a  good  place  for  trout,  and  was  accessible  by 
several  different  railroads.  Concerning  the  house 
itself  she  was  better  informed.  She  had  had  to 
copy  the  plans  of  its  interior  on  many  occasions 
when  her  guardian  had  made  futile  efforts  to 
sell  or  to  rent  it.  She  also  knew  that  the  place 
was  fully  furnished,  and  that  an  old  woman  lived 
in  it  as  care-taker,  rent  free,  and  liable  to  be 
dispossessed  at  any  moment. 

The  nurse  was  told  that  they  would  go  to 
Jericho  with  her.  She  only  asked  would  the 
baby  take  her  bottle  now  or  wait  till  she  got 
there  ? 


Jericho  Junction  is  one  of  those  lonely  and 

forsaken    little    stopping-places    on    the    outskirts 

of    the    great    woods    that    are    the    sportsman's 

paradise,  with  a  dreary,  brown-painted,  pine  box, 

91 


just  big  enough  for  the  ticket  agent,  the  bag 
gage  master,  the  telegraph  operator,  the  flagman, 
the  local  postmaster,  and  the  casual  or  possible 
intending  passenger.  As  this  makes  two  persons 
in  all,  the  structure  is  not  large. 

The  casual  passenger  and  the  full  corps  of 
local  railway  officials  were  both  present  at  Jericho 
Junction  when  the  6:30  P.  M.  train  loomed  out 
of  the  dreary,  raw  May  twilight,  and  drew  up 
in  front  of  the  little  box.  Now,  these  two  oc 
cupants  of  the  tiny  station  were  neighbors  but 
not  friends.  Farmer  Byam  Beebe  lived  "a  piece 
back  in  the  country,  over  t'wards  Ellenville  South 
Farms."  Mr.  John  D.  Wilkins,  station  agent, 
telegraph  operator,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  func 
tionaries  of  Jericho  Junction,  dwelt  in  his  little 
box,  midway  between  Ellenville  South  Farms 
and  the  nearest  important  town,  Bunker's  Mills, 
a  considerable  manufacturing  settlement.  A 
houseless  stretch  of  ten  miles  separated  the 
neighbors;  but  not  even  ten  miles  had  stood 

Q2 


-y-   flfcr.  ICUcfc's  Bunt.    ^T 

between  them  and  a  grudge  of  many  years'  dura 
tion.  Beebe  hated  Wilkins,  and  Wilkins  hated 
Beebe.  Never  mind  why.  They  were  close 
neighbors  for  that  region;  and  that  more  close 
neighbors  do  not  kill  each  other  testifies  every 
day  to  the  broad  spread  of  Christian  charity. 

Mr.  Beebe  so  hated  Mr.  Wilkins  that  he 
made  it  a  regular  practice  to  stop  at  the  sta 
tion  after  his  day's  work  was  done,  to  wait  for 
this  particular  train.  Silent  and  unfriendly,  he 
would  loaf  in  the  station  for  an  hour  and  a  half, 
and  the  station  master  dared  not  put  him  out, 
for  he  was  possibly  an  intending  passenger  on 
the  train  as  far  as  the  next  flag-station,  which 
was  a  railroad  crossing  a  mile  and  a  quarter 
further  on.  Mr.  Beebe  never  bought  a  ticket 
from  Mr.  Wilkins,  on  the  occasions  when  he  did 
ride.  He  paid  his  way  on  the  cars,  five  cents, 
plus  ten  cents  rebate-check,  and  this  rebate-check 
he  redeemed  at  Mr.  Wilkins's  office  the  next  day. 
Furthermore,  he  made  a  point  of  going  out  just 
before  the  train  arrived,  and  waiting  on  the 
other  side  of  it  to  get  in,  so  that  Mr.  Wilkins 
could  not  tell  whether  he  boarded  the  train  or 
walked  off  through  the  thick  woods  that  crowded 
down  to  the  very  edge  of  the  line. 


•y    flfcore  "Sbort  Sijes."    V 

Thus  it  happened  that  as  the  train  arrived  on 
the  evening  of  the  first  of  May,  Mr.  Beehe,  being 
on  the  farther  side  of  the  track  from  the  railroad 
station,  saw  an  Irish  nurse  blunder  helplessly  off 
the  platform  in  front  of  him,  holding  a  six  months' 
old  baby  in  her  arms,  and  stand  staring  straight 
before  her  in  evident  bewilderment.  Mr.  Beebe 
accosted  her  in  all  kindness : 

"  Your  folks  got  off  the  other  side,  I  guess. 
This  here  ain't  the  right  side  for  nobody,  only 
me."  Then  he  prodded  the  baby  with  a  large 
and  horny  finger.  "  How  old  will  that  young  'un 
be?"  he  inquired. 

"  Six  months,  sorr,"  replied  the  nurse ;  "  gahn 
on  seven." 

"Is  that  so?"  said  Mr.  Beebe,  with  polite 
affectation  of  interest.  "  Folks  been  long  mar 
ried  ?  " 

"  Wan  month,  sorr,"  replied  the  nurse. 

"  Which  ?  "  inquired  Mr.  Beebe. 

"  Wan  month,  sorr,"  replied  the  nurse. 


On  the  other  side  of  the  train  of  cars,  station 
agent  John  D.  Wilkins  saw  an  old-fashioned 
carryall  drive  up,  conducted  by  an  elderly  woman 
of  austere  demeanor.  She  was  dressed  in  black 
alpaca,  and  her  look  was  stern  and  severe,  and, 
necessarily,  highly  respectable.  He  saw  a  young 
man  and  a  young  woman  descend  from  the  train, 
and  saw  the  young  man  hand  the  young  woman 
into  the  carryall  behind  the  elderly  lady.  Then, 
as  the  young  man  turned  as  though  to  look 
for  some  one  following  him,  he  heard  the  young 
woman  say : 

94 


"Winkelman,   dear,   I   don't   care  what  her 
age  is,  you  must  spank  your  aunt ! " 


When  Mr.  John  D.  Wilkins  heard  what  he 
heard,  he  forgot  the  rules  of  the  railroad  com 
pany,  according  to  which  he  should  have  re 
mained  on  the  platform  until  the  train  had  left. 
He  knew  that  just  at  6:30  his  particular  crony, 
Mr.  Hiram  Stalls,  telegraph  operator  at  Bunker's 
Mills,  and  news-gatherer  for  the  Bunker's  Mills 
Daily  Eagle,  went  off  duty  in  his  telegraphic 
capacity,  and  became  an  unalloyed  journalist. 
He  caught  Mr.  Stalls  in  the  act  of  saying  good 
night,  and  he  talked  to  him  over  the  wire  in  dot 
and  dash  thus : 

"  That  you,   Hi  ?      Meet  me  at   the   station 


"Sbort  Stjes." 


cry 


when  the  7:21  gets  in.  I  've  got  a  news  item 
for  you  that  will  make  the  Eagle  scream  this 
trip,  sure." 

If  Mr.  Wilkins  had  not  been  so  zealous  in 
breaking  his  employer's  rules  in  the  interest  of 
personal  journalism,  he  would  have  heard  the 
young  man  thus  enjoined  to  inflict  humiliating 
punishment  upon  a  parent's  sister,  respond  to  this 
cruel  counsel  in  these  words: 
It  will  only  make  her 
more ;  —  why,  where 
the  deuce  is  the  brat, 
anyway  ?  " 

Moreover,      he 
would     have      seen 
Mr.   Beebe  pilot   an 
Irish    nurse     and    a 
bundled  -  up     baby 
around  the    rear   of 
the    train,   and   then 
jump  on  the  platform 
as     the     cars    started, 
with    all    the    vigor    and 

energy  which  the  possession  of  a  real  mean  story 
about  a  fellow  human  being  can  impart  to  the 
most  aged  and  stiffened  limbs.  But  he  did  n't. 
What  would  become  of  the  gossip  business  if 
those  engaged  in  it  stopped  to  find  things  out? 


When  Caesar  expressed  a  preference  for  be 
ing   the   first   man   in    a   village,   over   a   second- 
fiddle  job  in   Rome,  he  probably  never  reflected 
how  much  it  would  rile  him  if  he  should   hap- 
06 


V    Ar.  Iflicfc's  aunt,    -y 

pen  to  find  out  that  there  was  just  as  big  a 
man  in  the  next  village  who  did  n't  know 
Caesar  from  a  cheese-cake;  yet  that  is  the  poor 
limitation  of  local  bigness.  Great  is  Mr.  Way 
in  Wayback,  and  great  is  Mr.  Hay  in  Hayville ; 
but  what  is  Mr.  Way  in  Hayville,  and  what  is 
Mr.  Hay  in  Wayback  ?  Two  nothings,  two 
casual  strangers,  with  no  credit,  with  no  say-no, 
two  mere  chunks  of  humanity  whose  value  to 
the  community  is  strictly  proportionate  to  the 
size  of  their  greenback  wads,  and  the  laxity  or 
tenacity  of  their  several  grips  thereon. 

At  nine  o'clock  that  night  two  local  Caesars, 
in  two  towns  but  a  score  of  miles  from  each 
other,  donned  the  ermine  of  power,  waved  the 
sceptre  of  authority,  and  told  their  pale  -  faced 
but  devoted  followers  that  "SOMETHING  had 
got  to  be  done  about  IT." 

The  "IT,"  of  course,  was  an  "OUTRAGE  " 
—  it  always  is  when  something  has  got  to  be 
done  about  it,  and  the  something  generally  means 
just  about  nothing. 

In  the  front  parlor  of  his  large  mansard- 
roof  residence,  Mr.  Bodger  —  Mr.  Theophilus 
Scranton  Bodger,  prominent  manufacturer,  pillar 
of  the  Church,  candidate  for  the  mayoralty,  and 
general  all  around  magnate  and  muldoon  of 
Bunker's  Mills,  sat  amid  surroundings  of  much 
elegance,  black  walnut,  gilt,  plush  and  hand- 
painted  tidies,  and  slapping  a  broad  palm  with 
a  burly  fist,  told  Mr.  Stalls,  Mr.  Wilkins  and 
Mrs.  Bodger  that  something  had  got  to  be  done 
about  it. 

At  the  same  moment,  in  the  Sunday  School 
room  of  the  Baptist  Church  in  Ellenville  South 

97 


Farms,  Mr.  Manfred  Lusk  Hackfeather,  theo 
logical  student,  Sunday  School  superintendent, 
social  leader  and  idol  of  the  ladies  in  Ellenville 
South  Farms,  told  six  fluttering  feminine  things, 
who  gazed  at  him  in  affectionate  awe,  that 
something  had  got  to  be  done  about  it. 

Mr.  Bodger's  business  was  making  socks. 
Mr.  Hackfeather  may  have  been  wearing  a  pair 
of  socks  of  Mr.  Bodger's  make  at  that  very  in 
stant,  yet  had  he  never  heard  of  Bodger;  nor 
did  Mr.  Bodger  know  that  any  part  of  his 
growing  business  was  built  up  on  the  money  of 
a  man  named  Hackfeather. 


To  say  that  a  party  of  Brooklyn  people, 
conducted  in  an  old-fashioned  carryall,  by  an 
elderly  woman  of  austere  demeanor,  entered  the 
deep  pine  wood  in  a  chilled  twilight  of  early 
Spring  certainly  ought  to  convey  an  impression 
of  gloom.  And  certainly  gloom  of  the  deepest 
enshrouded  the  beginning  of  that  ride.  Diligent 
inquiry  elicited  from  the  elderly  woman  that  she 


^    /for.  Wictte  Hunt.    ^ 

was,  as  the  Wicks  supposed,  Miss  Hipsy,  the 
care-taker;  that  she  had  received  their  telegram, 
or  she  would  n't  have  been  there  nohow;  that 
she  had  had  a  contrack  with  the  late  owner  of 
the  premises;  that  she  had  lived  up  to  it,  what 
ever  other  people  hed  or  hed  n't  done;  that 
what  she  had  done  she  would  do,  and  that 
if  she  was  not  satisfactory  to  other  parties,  or 
if  other  parties  was  not  satisfactory  to  her, 
which  was  most  likely  to  be  the  case,  she  was 
willin',  as  far  as  she  was  concerned,  to  take  her 
self  off  just  as  soon  as  she  could ;  that  she 
thanked  Providence  she  had  folks  in  Ellenville 
she  could  go  to,  as  respectable  as  some,  that 
she  could  go  to  and  no  obligations  to  nobody, 
and  that  she  was  not  aware  that  her  contrack 
called  for  no  general  conversation. 

Now  this  extremely  discouraging  way  and 
manner  of  Miss  Hipsy's  was  entirely  general  and 
impersonal,  like  dampness  or  a  close  smell  in  a 
long  unused  house.  Congenitally  sub  -  acid,  a 
failure  to  accomplish  any  sort  of  an  early  or 
late  love  affair  had  completely  soured  her,  and 
many  years  of  solitude  had  put  a  gray-green 
coating  of  mildew  over  her  moral  nature.  But 
the  Wicks  did  not  know  this,  and,  remembering 
their  peculiar  position,  it  made  them  feel  ex 
tremely  uncomfortable. 

But  the  moon  came  out  in  the  soft  Spring 
sky,  and  the  mists  of  the  evening  rolled  away, 
and  a  great  silvery  radiance  wrapped  the  cathe 
dral  -  like  spires  and  -pinnacles  of  the  broad 
spreading  pine  forest,  and,  after  awhile,  the  rough 
corduroy  road  grew  smoother,  and  the  baby 
stopped  crying  and  went  to  sleep,  and  they 

8  99 


"Sbort  Sijee." 


were  all,  except  Miss  Hipsy,  beginning  to  nod 
off  just  a  little  when  the  wheels  crunched  on  a 
driveway  of  white  pebbles,  and  they  looked  up 
to  see  a  spacious  low  building  standing  out 
black  against  the  sky,  except  where  a  half  a 
dozen  brightly  lit  windows  winked  at  them  like 
friendly  eyes. 

This  was  the  bungalow,  and  here  they  found 
a  sportsman's  supper  of  cold  meat  and  ale  await 
ing  them.  Miss  Hipsy  told  them,  by  way  of 
leaving  no  doubt  of  the  unfriendliness  of  her 
intentions,  that  this  refection  was  provided  for  in 
the  contract.  So,  also,  must  have  been  the  de- 
liciously  soft  beds  in  which  they  were  presently 
all  fast  asleep,  even  to  the  baby.  And  when  a 
traveling  baby  will  sleep,  anybody  else  can. 

In  the  morning  the  elder  Wicks  opened 
their  eyes  on  a  world  of  wonderment  and  be 
wilderment.  They  found  themselves  living  in  a 
well-appointed  and  commodious  club-house,  on 
the  banks  of  a  broad  and  beautiful  lake,  across 
which  other  similar  structures  with  pretty,  low, 
peaked  roofs  looked  at  them  in  neighborly  fash- 


^    Ar.  •waters  Bunt.    <y 

ion  from  the  other  side.  Mrs.  Wick  said  that 
it  was  too  nice  for  anything. 

There  was  nothing  mysterious  about  the 
surprise  which  the  Wicks  had  found  awaiting 
them.  Sportsmen  have  a  habit  of  referring  to 
their  possessions  in  a  depreciatory  way.  They 
call  a  comfortable  club-house  a  "  box "  or  a 
"bungalow"  or  a  "shack,"  and  they  make  no 
thing  of  calling  a  costly  hotel  a  "camp."  Indeed, 
they  seem  to  try  to  impart  a  factitious  flavor  of 
profanity  by  christening  such  structures,  whenever 
they  can,  "  Middle  Dam  Camp"  or  "Upper  Dam 
Camp."'  And  since  Mrs.  Wick's  father's  club  had 
died  out,  the  further  side  of  Jericho  Pond  had 
become  a  fashionable  resort,  maintaining  two  or 
three  Winter  and  Summer  Sanitariums. 

Thanks  to  the  contract,  they  made  an  excel 
lent  breakfast,  and  their  praises  of  the  fare  molli 
fied  Miss  Hipsy  to  some  slight  extent.  Then 
they  remembered  the  baby,  and  after  some  search 
they  found  the  Irish  nurse  walking  it  up  and 
down  on  a  broad  sunny  terrace  at  the  back  of 
the  house.  Below  stretched  an  old-fashioned 
garden,  full  of  homely,  pleasant  flowers  and  sim 
ples  just  beginning  to  show  their  buds  to  the 
tempting  month  of  May. 

The  scene  was  so  pleasant  that  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Wick  started  out  for  a  walk,  and  the  walk 
was  so  pleasant  that  they  prolonged  it,  —  pro 
longed  it  until  they  reached  the  settlement  on  the 
other  side  of  the  lake,  and  the  people  there  were 
so  pleasant  that  they  staid  to  dinner  at  a  club, 
and  did  not  get  back  till  nearly  supper-time. 


* 
tor 


You  will  please  observe  that,  so  far  as  the 
members  of  the  Wick  family  are  concerned,  they 
stand  as  clear  at  this  point  as  they  did  when  we 
got  them  down  to  bed-rock  level,  on  the  tenth  of 
April,  eighteen  hundred  and  tumty-tum.  Their 
ways  have  been  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  their 
paths  have  been  paths  of  peace.  The  two  Wicks 
we  are  dealing  with,  like  all  the  other  Wicks, 
have  kept  their  engagements  and  filled  their  con 
tract.  They  have  minded  their  own  business  and 
nobody  else's.  They  are,  in  fact,  all  straight  on 
the  record. 

But  now  we  have  to  recount  the  fortunes  of 
two  social  reformers,  and  it  is  hard  for  a  reformer 
to  keep  straight  on  the  record.  Whether  they 
have  a  genuine  reform  on  their  hands,  like  Martin 
Luther  or  the  Abolitionists,  or  whether  they  are 
like  Mr.  Harold  Kettledrum  Monocle,  of  New 
York,  who  thinks  that  the  Mayor  of  that  city 
ought  to  be  elected  by  Harvard  College,  they  are 


-y   dfcr.  Mich's  aunt.    ^ 

all  likely  to  have  what  one  might  call  a  mote- 
and-beam  sort  of  time  with  their  neighbors. 

Thus  did  it  happen  with  Mr.  Bodger,  of 
Bunker's  Mills,  and  with  Mr.  Hackfeather,  of 
Ellenville  South  Farms,  who  both  found  their 
way  to  Jericho  Pond  that  pleasant  afternoon,  the 
theological  student  a  little  in  advance  of  the  busi 
ness  man.  Mr.  Hackfeather  came  to  rebuke  a 
shocking  case  of  impropriety  in  two  so  young; 
Mr.  Bodger  came  to  express  the  sentiment  of 
society  at  large  toward  a  man  who  would  inflict 
corporal  chastisement  on'  a  lady. 

Terrible  as  with  an  army  with  banners,  and 
consumed  with  the  fire  of  righteousness,  Mr. 
Hackfeather  bore  down  on  the  old-fashioned 
garden  at  the  back  of  the  bungalow,  in  the  full 
glory  of  the  Spring  afternoon.  As  to  his  person, 
he  was  attired  in  a  long,  black  diagonal  frock- 
coat,  worn  unbuttoned,  and  so  well  worn  that 
its  flaps  waved  in  the  wind  with  all  the  easy 
grace  of  a  linen  duster.  Trousers  of  the  kind 
that  chorus  together :  "  We  are  pants,"  adorned 
his  long,  thin  but  heavily-kneed  legs.  A  shoe 
string  necktie,  a  low  cut  waistcoat,  and  a  whole- 
souled,  oh-be-joyful  shirtfront  added  to  this  simple 
but  harmonious  effect,  and  his  last  year's  hat 
had  a  mellow  tone  against  the  pale  Spring 
time  greens.  He  tackled  Miss  Hipsy  (who  had 
so  far  relented  from  her  austerity  as  to  take  the 
baby  while  the  nurse  got  dinner,)  in  that  old- 
fashioned  garden ;  and  the  benign  influences  of 
budding  nature  had  no  effect  whatever  upon  his 
pious  wrath.  He  pointed  out  the  discrepancy 
in  the  dates  of  the  vital  statistics  of  the  Wick 
family,  and  he  told  Miss  Hipsy  that  she  was 


•y-    More  "Sbort  Stjes."    V 

the  servant  of  sin,  (who  had  been  a  respectable 
woman  for  forty- three  years,  and  if  some  as 
ought  to  know  better  said  it  was  forty-seven 
there  was  no  truth  in  it,)  that  she  was  the  slave 
of  iniquity  and  abettor  of  sin,  (and  if  them  she 
knowed  of,  one  leastways,  was  alive  to-day  she 
would  not  be  insulted,)  that  the  demon  vice 
should  not  rear  its  hideous  head  in  that  unpol 
luted  community,  (and  she  was  n't  rarin'  no 
heads,  but  she  could  go  to  them  she  knowed 
of  as  could  rare  their  heads  as  high  as  him  or 
any  of  his  friends,)  and  that  even  if  he,  Mr. 


Hackfeather,  had  to  face  all  the  minions  of 
Satan,  and  all  the  retinue  of  the  Scarlet  Woman, 
he  would  purify  the  stain  or  die  in  the  attempt. 
Mr.  Hackfeather's  allusion  to  the  Lady  of 
Babylon  probably  was  born  of  a  mixed  condi 
tion  of  mind,  and  a  desire  to  use  forcible  lan 
guage.  It  did  not  seem  clear  to  him  and  it  did 
not  seem  clear  to  Miss  Hipsy,  either.  She  said 
she  was  no  such  a  thing,  and  never  expected 
104. 


^   dfcr.  TlBUcfe's  Bunt,    <y 

to  live  to  see  the  day  she  would  be  so  called, 
especially  at  her  time  of  life.  And,  tearful  and 
vociferous,  Miss  Hipsy  marched  back  to  the 
bungalow,  delivered  over  the  baby  to  the  Irish 
nurse,  packed  her  little  old  hair  trunk  with  the 
round  top,  dragged  it  down  herself  to  the  lake- 
front  dock,  and  there  sat  on  it  in  stern  grandeur 
until  the  afternoon  boat  came  down  the  lake 
and  took  her  to  Ellenville,  presumably  to  the 
sheltering  arms  of  them  that  she  knowed  of. 

Meanwhile,  a  thing  she  did  not  know  of 
was  happening  on  the  other  side  of  the  house 
in  that  same  old-fashioned  garden.  Mr.  Bodger, 
accompanied  by  Mr.  Stalls  and  Mr.  Wilkins, 
had  arrived  from  Bunker's  Mills  to  interview  the 
new  arrival  in  the  county,  whose  latitude  in  ad 
ministering  corporal  punishment  had  aroused  the 
indignation  of  every  humane  heart  that  had 
been  made  acquainted  with  the  station  master's 
story.  Mr.  Bodger  saw  the  departure  of  the 
weeping  woman  of  elderly  aspect,  he  heard  her 
wails,  and  he  saw  their  cause  in  a  strange 
young  man.  This  was  all  the  evidence  that  he 
wanted.  Mr.  Bodger  made  no  inquiries  into 
identity  or  relationship.  He  weighed  two  hun 
dred  and  twenty  pounds,  he  had  three  men 
behind  him,  and  he  fell  upon  Mr.  Hackfeather 
as  the  cyclone  falls  upon  the  chicken-coop. 


The  consequences  of  these  two  meetings 
were  so  far-reaching,  extending  to  warrants  of 
arrest,  counter  charges,  civil  suits  and  much 
civiler  compromises,  that  it  was  July  before  the 


ladies  of  the  Bodger  and  Hackfeather  families 
picked  up  their  threads  of  social  intercourse, 
which  were  knotted  only  at  one  point.  To  both 
of  them  it  occurred  on  a  fine  Summer's  day  to 
call  on  the  new  comers  at  the  old  bungalow  by 
way  of  seeing  whether  the  innocent  causes  of  so 
much  dire  mischief  knew  anything  about  the 
agitation  they  had  caused. 

As  the  train  from  Bunker's  Mills  met  the 
boat  from  Ellenville,  Mr.  Bodger's  wife  and  Mr. 
Hackfeather's  mother  arrived  at  the  same  time, 
and,  sitting  in  the  sunny  reception  room  of  the 
bungalow,  glared  at  each  other  in  chilly  and 
silent  hostility,  while  poor,  innocent  little  Mrs. 
Wick,  much  troubled  by  their  strange  behavior, 
tried  to  talk  to  both  of  them  at  once,  and 
rattled  away  in  her  embarrassment  until  she  had 
talked  a  great  deal  more  than  she  had  meant 
to.  She  told  them  all  the  story  of  Beatrice 
Brighton  Wick,  and  the  will,  and  the  hurried 
flight  to  Jericho,  and  at  their  surprise  at  finding 
Jericho  Pond  with  its  Summer  and  Winter  colony 
so  delightful  a  place  that  they  hardly  felt  as  if 

106 


V    d&r.  imtcfc's  Bunt.   ~f 

they  could  tear  themselves  away  from  it  when 
the  four  years  were  up.  And  she  told  them 
that  both  she  and  Mr.  Wick  had  thought  it 
might  be  quite  awkward  for  so  newly  married 
a  couple  to  be  traveling  with  a  six  month's 
old  baby,  and  that  baby  Mr.  Wick's  aunt. 

"But,  do  you  know,"  she  said,  "we  must 
have  been  over-sensitive  about  it,  for  we  never 
had  the  first  least  little  bit  of  trouble.  Indeed, 
the  only  mishap  we  had  was  the  other  way. 
The  old  woman  who  was  in  charge  of  the 
place  here  left  us  suddenly  the  first  day  with 
out  a  word  of  warning.  I  couldn't  make  out 
why  she  was  dissatisfied,  but  my  nurse,  Nora, 
told  me  that  she  thought  that  Miss  Hipsy 
thought  that  the  baby  was  too  young.  Some 
people  have  such  an  objection  to  young  babies, 


fO? 


^   flfoore  "Sbort  Sfjes."    -y 

you  know.  However,  it  did  n't  the  least  bit 
matter,  for  Nora  turned  out  to  be  a  very  good 
cook,  and  I  took  the  baby.  I  wanted  to  learn, 
you  know." 


ro8 


WHAT    MRS.    FORTESCUE    DID. 


WHAT    MRS.    FORTESCUE    DID. 


IGHT  in  the  rear  of  the  First  Con 
gregational  Church  of  'Qua'wket, 
and  cornerwise  across  the  street, 
the  Old  Ladies'  Home  of  Aquaw- 
ket  sits  on  the  topmost  of  a 
series  of  velvety  green  terraces. 
It  is  a  quiet  street ;  the  noisiest 
thing  in  it,  or  rather  over  it,  is  the  bell 
in  the  church  steeple,  and  that  is  as  deep 
toned  and  mellow  as  all  church  bells  ought  to  be 
and  few  church  bells  are.  As  to  the  Old  Ladies' 
Home,  itself,  it  looks  like  the  veritable  abode  of 
peace.  A  great  wistaria  clambers  over  its  dull 
brown  stucco  walls.  Beds  of  old-fashioned  flow 
ers  nod  and  sway  in  the  chastened  breezes  on  its 
two  sunny  sides,  and  thick  clumps  of  lilacs  and 
syringas  shield  it  to  the  north  and  east.  Dainty 
little  dimity  curtains  flutter  at  the  open  windows 
all  Summer  long;  and,  whether  it  comes  from 
the  immaculately  neat  chambers  of  the  old  ladies, 
or  from  some  of  the  old-fashioned  flower  beds, 
there  is  always,  in  warm  weather,  a  faint  smell 
of  lavender  floating  down  upon  the  breeze  to 
the  passer-by  in  the  quiet  street.  You  would 
never  dream,  to  look  at  it,  that  the  mad,  in 
human,  pitiless  strife  and  fury  of  an  Old  Ladies' 


,^i,  A 


Home  raged  ceaselessly,  year  after  year,  within 
those  quiet  walls. 

Now  suppose  that  every  wasp  in  a  certain 
wasp's  nest  had  an  individual  theology  of  its 
own,  totally  different  from  the  theology  of  any 
other  wasp,  and  that  each  one  personally  con 
ducted  his  theology  in  the  real  earnest  calvinistic 
spirit — you  would  call  that  wasp's  nest  a  pretty 
warm,  lively,  interesting  domicile,  would  you  not  ? 
Well,  it  would  he  a  paradise  of  paralysis  along 
side  of  an  Old  Ladies'  Home.  If  you  want  to 
get  at  the  original  compound  tincture  of  envy, 
malice  and  all  uncharitableness,  go  to  a  nice, 
respectable  Old  Ladies'  Home  with  a  list  of 
"Lady  Patronesses"  as  long  as  your  arm,  and 
get  the  genuine  article  in  its  most  highly  con 
centrated  form. 

There  were  eleven  inmates  of  the  '  Old 
Ladies'  Home  of  Aquawket,  besides  the  matron, 
the  nurse,  the  cook,  and  a  couple  of  "chore- 
girls."  These  two  last  led  a  sort  of  life  that 
came  very  near  to  qualifying  them  for  admis 
sion  to  the  institution  on  a  basis  of  premature 
old  age.  Of  the  real  old  ladies  in  the  home, 


-y   flfcore  "Sbort  Sties."    V 

every  one  of  the  eleven  had  a  bitter  and  un 
dying  grievance  against  at  least  one,  and,  pos 
sibly,  against  ten  of  her  companions,  and  the 
only  thing  that  held  the  ten  oldest  of  the 
band  together  was  the  burning  scorn  and  hatred 
which  they  all  felt  for  the  youngest  of  the 
flock,  Mrs.  Williametta  Fortescue,  who  signed 
what  few  letters  she  wrote  "Willie,"  and  had 
been  known  to  the  world  as  "Billy"  Fortescue 
when  she  sang  in  comic  opera  and  wore  pink 
tights. 

All  the  other  old  ladies  said  that  Mrs. 
Fortescue  was  a  daughter  of  Belial,  a  play 
actress,  and  no  old  lady,  anyway.  I  know 
nothing  about  her  ancestry —  and  I  don't  believe 
that  she  did,  either;  but  as  to  the  other  two 
counts  in  the  indictment  I  am  afraid  I  must 
plead  guilty  for  Mrs.  Fortescue.  An  actress  she 
was,  to  the  tips  of  her  fingers,  an  unconscious, 
involuntary,  dyed-in-the-wool  actress.  She  acted 
because  she  could  not  help  it,  not  from  any 
wish  to  deceive  or  mislead,  but  just  because  it 
came  as  natural  to  her  as  breathing.  If  you 
asked  her  to  take  a  piece  of  pie,  it  was  not 
enough  for  her  to  want  the  pie,  and  to  tell  you 
so,  and  to  take  the  pie;  she  had  to  act  out 
the  whole  dramatic  business  of  the  situation  — 
her  passion  for  pie,  her  eager  craving  and 
anxicfus  expectation,  her  incredulous  delight  when 
she  actually  got  the  pie,  and  her  tender,  brood 
ing  thankfulness  and  gratitude  when  she  had 
got  outside  of  the  pie,  and  put  it  where  it 
could  n't  be  taken  away  from  her.  No;  there 
was  n't  the  least  bit  of  humbug  in  it  all.  She 
did  want  the  pie;  but  she  wanted  to  act,  too. 


It  was  this  characteristic  of  Mrs.  Fortescue 
that  got  her  into  the  Old  Ladies'  Home  on 
false  pretenses ;  for,  to  tell  the  truth,  Mrs.  For 
tescue  was  only  an  old  lady  by  courtesy.  She 
had  beautiful  white  hair;  but  she  had  had 
beautiful  white  hair  ever  since  she  was  twenty 
years  old.  Before  she  had  reached  that  age 
she  had  had  red  hair,  black  hair,  brown  hair, 
golden  hair,  and  hair  of  half-a-dozen  interme 
diate  shades.  Either  the  hair  or  the  hair  dye 
finally  got  tired,  and  Mrs.  Fortescue's  head  be 
came  white  —  that  is,  when  she  gave  it  a  chance 
to  be  its  natural  self.  That,  however,  was  not 
often ;  and,  at  last,  there  came  a  day  when, 
as  her  manager  coarsely  expressed  it,  "she 
monkeyed  with  her  fur  one  time  too  many." 
For  ten  years  she  had  been  the  leading  lady 
in  a  small  traveling  opera  company,  where  tire- 
113 


"Sbort  Sijes."    V 

less  industry  and  a  willingness  to  wait  for  salary 
were  accepted  as  substitutes  for  extreme  youth 
and  commanding  talent.  Ten  years  is  a  long 
time,  especially  when  it  is  neither  the  first  nor 
the  second,  and,  possibly,  not  the  third  ten  years 
of  an  actress's  professional  career;  and  when 
Mrs.  Fortescue  asked  for  a  contract  for  three 
years  more,  her  manager  told  her  that  he  was 
not  in  the  business  for  his  health,  and  that 
While  he  regarded  her  as  one  of  the  most 
elegant  ladies  he  had  ever  met  in  his  life,  her 
face  was  not  made  of  India  rubber;  and,  further 
more,  that  the  public  was  just  about  ready  for 
the  Spring  styles  in  leading  ladies.  This  did 
not  hurt  Mrs.  Fortescue's  feelings,  for  the  lead 
ing  juvenile  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of 
calling  her  "Mommer,  dear,"  whenever  they 
had  to  rehearse  impassioned  love  scenes.  But 
it  did  put  her  on  her  mettle,  and  she  tried  a 
new  hair  dye,  just  to  show  what  she  could  do. 
The  result  was  a  case  of  lead  poisoning,  that 
laid  her  up  in  a  dirty  little  second-class  hotel, 
in  a  back  street  of  'Quawket  for  three  months 
of  suffering  and  helplessness.  The  company 
went  its  way  and  left  her,  and  went  to  pieces 
in  the  end.  The  greater  part  of  her  poor 
savings  went  for  the  expenses  of  her  sickness. 
At  last,  when  the  critical  period  was  over,  her 
doctor  got  some  charitably-disposed  ladies  and 
gentlemen  interested  in  her  case ;  and,  between 
them  all,  they  procured  admission  to  the  Old 
Ladies'  Home  for  a  poor,  white-haired,  half- 
palsied  wreck  of  a  woman,  who  not  only  was 
decrepit  before  her  time,  but  who  acted  de 
crepitude  so  successfully  that  nobody  thought 


of  asking  her  if  she  were  less  than  eighty  years 
old.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  Mrs.  Fortescue 
willfully  deceived  her  benefactors :  she  was  old 
—  oldish,  anyway  —  she  was  helpless,  partially 
paralyzed,  and  her  system  was  permeated  with 
lead;  but  when  she  came  to  add  to  this  the 
correct  dramatic  outfit  of  expression,  she  was 
so  old,  and  so  sick,  and  so  utterly  miserable 
and 'stricken  and  done  for  that  the  hearts  of 
the  managers  of  the  Old  Ladies'  Home  were 
opened,  and  they  took  her  in  at  half  the  usual 
entrance  fee;  because,  as  the  matron  very 
thoughtfully  remarked,  she  could  n't  possibly 
live  six  weeks,  and  it  was  just  so  much  clear 
gain  for  the  institution.  By  the  end  of  six- 
weeks,  however,  Mrs.  Fortescue  was  just  as  well 
as  she  had  ever  been  in  her  life,  and  was 
acting  about  twice  as  healthy  as  she  felt. 

With  her  trim  figure,  her  elastic  step,  and 
her  beautiful  white  hair  setting  off  her  rosy 
cheeks — and  Mrs.  Fortescue  knew  how  to  have 
rosy  cheeks  whenever  she  wanted  them  —  she 


"Sbort  Sixes."    -^ 

certainly  was  an  incongruous  figure  in  an  Old 
Ladies'  Home,  and  it  was  no  wonder  that  her 
presence  made  the  genuine  old  ladies  genuinely 
mad.  And  every  day  of  her  stay  they  got 
madder  and  madder;  for  by  the  constitution  of 
the  Home,  an  inmate  might,  if  dissatisfied  with 
her  surroundings,  after  a  two -years'  stay,  with 
draw  from  the  institution,  taking  her  entrance 
fee  with  her.  And  that  was  why  Mrs.  Fortescue 
staid  on  in  the  Old  Ladies'  Home,  snubbed, 
sneered  at,  totally  indifferent  to  it  "all,  eating 
three  square  meals  a  day,  and  checking  off  the 
dull  but  health -giving  weeks  that  brought  her 
nearer  to  freedom,  and  the  comfortable  little 
nest-egg  with  which  she  meant  to  begin  life 
again. 

And  yet  the  time  came  when  Mrs.  For- 
tescue's  histrionic  capacity  won  for  her,  if  not 
a  friend,  at  -least  an  ally,  out  of  the  snarling 
sisterhood ;  and  for  a  few  brief  months  there 
was  just  one  old  woman  out  of  the  lot  who 
was  decently  civil  to  her,  and  who  even  showed 
rudimentary  systems  of  polite  intentions. 


This  old  woman  was  Mrs.  Filley,  and  this 
was  the  manner  of  her  .modification. 

One  pleasant  Spring  day,  a  portly  gentle 
man  of  powerful  frame,  with  ruddy  cheeks  and 
short,  steel-gray  hair  —  a  man  whose  sturdy 
physique  hardly  suited  with  his  absent-minded, 
unbusiness  -  like  expression  of  countenance  —  as 
cended  the  terraces  in  front  of  the  Old  Ladies' 
Home.  His  brows  were  knit;  he  looked  upon 

Ji6 


V   "Wlbat  dfcrs.  tfortescue  2>tt>.    ^ 

the  ground  as  he  walked,  and  he  did  not  in 
the  least  notice  the  eleven  old  ladies,  the 
matron,  the  nurse,  the  cook  and  the  two 
"chore-girls"  who  were  watching  his  every  step 
with  profound  interest. 

Mrs.  Fortescue  was  watching  the  gentle 
man  with  interest,  because  she  thought  that  he 
was  a  singularly  fine-looking  and  well-preserved 
man,  as  indeed  he  was.  All  the  other  inmates 
of  the  Home  were  watching  him  with  interest 
because  he  was  Mr.  Josiah  Heatherington  Filley, 
the  millionaire  architect,  civil  engineer  and  con 
tractor.  Their  interest,  however,  was  not  excited 
by  Mr.  Filley's  fame  as  a  designer  of  mighty 
bridges,  of  sky-scraping  office  buildings,  and  of 
other  triumphs  of  mechanical  skill;  they  looked 
on  him  with  awe  and  rapture  simply  because 
he  was  the  richest  man  in  'Quawket,  or,  more 
properly  speaking,  in  'Quawket  Township;  for 
Mr.  Filley  lived  in  the  old  manor-house  of  the 
Filley  family,  a  couple  of  miles  out  of  town. 

You  might  think  that  with  a  millionaire 
Mr.  Filley  coming  up  the  steps,  the  heart  of 
indigent  Mrs.  Filley  in  the  Old  Ladies'  Home 
might  beat  high  with  expectation ;  but,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  did  not.  In  Connecticut  and 
New  Jersey  family  names  mean  no  more  than 
the  name  of  breeds  of  poultry  - —  like  Plymouth 
Rocks  or  Wyandottes.  All  Palmers  are  kin,  so 
are  all  Vreelands,  and  the  Smiths  of  Peapack 
are  of  one  stock.  But  so  are  all  speckled  hens, 
and  kinship  may  mean  no  more  In  one  case 
than  it  does  in  the  other.  In  colonial  times, 
Filleys  had  abounded  in  'Quawket.  But  to 
Mrs.  Filley  of  the  Home  the  visit  of  Mr.  Filley 


of  the  Manor  House  was  as  the  visit  of  a 
stranger;  and  very  much  surprised,  indeed,  was 
she  when  the  great  man  asked  to  see  her. 

In  spite  of  his  absent-minded  expression, 
Mr.  Filley  proved  to  be  both  direct  and  busi 
ness-like.  He  explained  his  errand  briefly  and 
clearly. 

Mr.  Filley  was  a  bachelor,  and  the  last  of 
his  branch  of  the  family.  His  only  surviving 
relative  was  a  half-brother  by  his  mother's  first 
marriage,  who  had  lived  a  wandering  and  worth 
less  life,  and  who  had  died  in  the  West  a 
widower,  leaving  one  child,  a  girl  of  nine,  in  a 

118 


y   *WHbat  /l&rs.  fforteecue  Did.   y 

Massachusetts  boarding  -  school.  This  child  he 
had  bequeathed  to  the  loving  care  and  atten 
tion  of  his  brother.  It  is  perfectly  wonderful 
how  men  of  that  particular  sort,  who  never  can 
get  ten  dollars  ahead  of  the  world,  Will  pick  up 
a  tremendous  responsibility  of  that  kind,  and 
throw  it  around  just  as  if  it  were  a  half-pound 
dumb-bell.  They  don't  seem  to  mind  it  at  all ; 
it  does  not  weigh  upon  their  spirits;  they  will 
pass  over  a  growing  child  to  anybody  who  hap 
pens  to  be  handy,  to  be  taken  care  of  for  life, 
just  as  easily  as  you  would  hand  a  towel  over  to 
the  next  man  at  the  wash-basin,  as  soon  as  you 
are  done  with  it.  Mr.  Filley's  half-brother  may 
have  died  easily,  and  probably  did,  but  he  could 
not  possibly  have  made  such  a  simple  job  of  it 
as  he  did  of  turning  over  Etta  Adelina,  his 
daughter,  to  the  care  of  the  half-brother  whom 
he  hardly  knew  well  enough  to  borrow  money 
from  oftener  than  once  a  year. 

Now,  Mr.  Josiah  Filley  had  promised  his 
mother  on  her  death-bed  that  he  would  assume 
a  certain  sort  of  responsibility  for  the  conse 
quences  of  the  perfectly  legitimate  but  highly 
injudicious  matrimonial  excursion  of  her  early 
youth,  and  so  he  accepted  the  guardianship  of 
Etta  Adelina.  But  he  was  not,  as  the  worldly 
phrase  it,  "too  easy."  He  was  a  profound  sci 
entific  student,  and  a  man  whose  mind  was 
wrapt  up  in  his  profession,  but  he  did  not  pro 
pose  to  make  a  parade-ground  of  himself  for 
everybody  who  might  feel  inclined  to  walk  over 
him.  He  had  no  intention  of  taking  the  care  of  a 
nine-year-old  infant  upon  himself,  and  the  happy 
idea  had  come  to  him  of  hunting  up  the  last 


flfcore  "Short  Stjes. 


feminine  bearer  of  his  name  in  the  'Quawket 
Old  Ladies'  Home,  and  hiring  her  for  a  liberal 
cash  payment  to  represent  him  as  a  quarterly 
visitor  to  the  school  where  the  young  one  was 
confined. 

"  I  don't  suppose,"  he  said,  "  there  is  any 
actual  relationship  between  us — " 

"There  ain't  none,"  interrupted  Mrs. 
Filley;     "leastwise    there     ain't 
been    none    since   your   father 
got    money   enough    to   send 
you  to  college." 

Mr.   Filley  smiled   indul 
gently. 

"  Well,"  he  suggested, 
"suppose  we  re-establish  re 
lationship  as  cousins.  All 
you  have  to  do  for  some 
years  to  come  is  to  visit  the 
Tophill  Institute  once  in 
three  months,  satisfy  your 
self  that  the  child  is  properly 
1  taken  care  of  and  educated, 
and  kindly  treated,  and  to 
make  a  full  and  complete  re 
port  to  me  in  writing.  If  any 
thing  is  wrong,  let  me  know.  I 
shall  examine  your  reports  carefully.  Wrhether 
it  is  favorable  or  unfavorable,  if  I  am  satisfied 
that  it  is  correct  and  faithful,  I  will  send  you 
my  check  for  fifty  dollars.  Is  it  a  bargain  ? " 

It  was  a  bargain,  but  poor  old  Mrs.  Filley 
stipulated  for  a  payment  in  cash  instead  of  by 
check.  She  had  once  in  her  life  been  caught 
on  a  worthless  note,  and  she  never  had  got  the 


^r    imbat  /Ifcre.  ffortescue 

distinction  between  notes  and  checks  clear  in  htr 
mind.  As  to  Mr.  Josiah  Filley,  he  was  not 
wholly  satisfied  with  the  representative  of  his 
family,  so  far  as  grammar  and  manners  were 
concerned ;  but  he  saw  with  his  scholar's  eye, 
that  looked  so  absent-minded  and  took  in  so 
much,  that  the  old  lady  was  both  shrewd  and 
kindly-natured,  and  he  felt  sure  that  Etta  Ade- 
lina  would  be  safe  in  her  hands. 

When  I  said  that  Mrs.  Filley  was  kindly,  I 
meant  that  as  a  human  being  she  was  capable  of 
kindness.  Of  course,  as  an  inmate  of  an  Old 
Ladies'  Home,  she  was  just  as  spiteful  as  any 
other  of  the  old  Jadies,  and  her  first  natural  im 
pulse  was  to  make  a  profound  mystery  of  Mr. 
Filley's  errand,  not  only  because  by  so  doing  she 
could  tease  the  other  old  ladies,  but  from  a  nat 
ural,  old-ladylike  fear  that  somebody  else  might 
get  her  job  away  from  her.  But  she  found  her 
self  unable  to  carry  out  her  pleasant  scheme  in 
its  entirety.  Nine  of  her  aged  comrades,  and  all 
the  members  of  the  household  staff,  consumed 
their  souls  in  bitterness,  wondering  .what  the  mil 
lionaire  had  wanted  of  his  humble  kinswoman; 
and  three  times  in  the  course  of  one  year  they 
saw  that  excellent  woman  put  on  her  Sunday 
black  silk  and  take  her  silent  way  to  the  railroad 
station.  On  the  day  following  they  saw  her  re 
turn,  but  where  she  had  been  or  why  she  had 
been  there  they  knew  not.  By  the  rules  of  the 
Home  she  had  a  right  to  eight  days  of  absence 
annually.  She  told  the  matron  that  she  was  going 
to  see  her  "folks."  The  matron  knew  well  that 
she  had  not  a  folk  in  the  world,  but  she  had 
to  take  the  old  lady's  word. 


But  did  not  those  dear  old  ladies  ask  the 
ticket-agent  at  the  station  what  station  Mrs. 
Filley  took  tickets  for?  Indeed  they  did,  bless 
them !  And  the  ticket  -  agent  told  them  that 
Mrs.  Filley  had  bought  a  thousand -mile  ticket, 
and  that  they  would  have  to  hunt  up  the  con 
ductors  who  took  up  her  coupons  on  the  next 
division  of  the  road,  if  they  wanted  to  find  out. 
(A  thousand -mile  ticket,  gentle  reader,  is  a  de 
lightful  device  by  means  of  which  you  can  buy 
a  lot  of  travel  in  one  big  chunk,  and  work  it 
out  in  little  bits  whenever  you  want  to.  Next 
to  a  sure  and  certain  consciousness  of  salvation, 
it  gives  its  possessor  more  of  a  feeling  of  pride 
and  independence  than  anything  else  this  life 
has  to  offer.) 

And  yet  Mrs.  Filley's  happiness*  was  in 
complete,  for  it  was  necessary  to  let  one  person 
into  her  secret.  She  put  it  on  her  spectacles, 
which  had  not  been  of  the  right  kind  for  a 
number  of  years,  owing  to  the  inferiority  of 
modern  glass  ware,  but  defective  education  was 


•y   "Wabat  /Hbrs.  jfortescue  5>f&,    -y 

what  brought  Mrs.  Filley  to  making  a  con 
fidant  of  Mrs.  Fortescue.  No  spectacles  that 
ever  were  made  would  have  enabled  Mrs.  Filley 
to  spell,  and  when  she  began  her  first  report 
thus: 

"  i  sene  the  gerl     She  had  or  to  hav  cod- 

livor  roil  — " 

even  she,  herself,  felt  that  it  was  hardly  the 
report  for  Mr.  Filley 's  fifty-dollars.  Here  is  the 
way  that  Mrs.  Fortescue  started  off  that  report 
in  her  fine  Italian  hand : 

"It  gives  me  the  greatest  pleasure,  my 
dear  Mr.  Filley,  to  inform  you  that,  pursuant 
to  your  instructions,  I  journeyed  yesterday  to 
the  charming,  and  I  am  sure  salubrious  shades 
of  Tophill,  to  look  after  the  welfare  of  your 
interesting  and  precocious  little  ward.  Save  for 
the  slight  pallor  which  might  suggest  the  addi 
tion  of  some  simple  tonic  stimulant,  such  as 
codliver  oil,  to  the  generous  fare  of  the  Tophill 
Academy,  I  found  your  little  Ey;a  Adelina-  in 
every  respect — " 

Mrs.  Filley's  name  was  signed  to  that  re 
port  in  the  same  fine  Italian  hand;  and  it  sur 
prised  Mr.  Filley  very  much  when  he  saw  it. 
But  there  was  more  surprise  ahead  for  Mr.  Filley. 


As  a  business  man  Mr.  Filley  read  the 
paper,  but  not  the  local  papers  of  'Quawket,  for 
it  was  seldom  that  the  papers  were  local  there 
long  enough  to  get  anybody  into  the  habit  of 
reading  them.  Thus  it  came  about  that  he 
failed  to  see  the  notice  of  the  death  of  old 


Mrs.  Filley,  which  occurred  in  the  Old  Ladies' 
Home  something  less  than  a  twelve-month  after 
the  date  of  his  first  and  only  visit.  The  death 
occurred,  however,  but  the  reports  kept  on  com 
ing  in  the  same  fine  Italian  hand,  and  with  the 
same  generous  freedom  in  language  of  the  most 
expensive  sort.  No  man  could  have  got  more 
report  for  fifty  dollars  than  Mr.  Filley  got,  and 
the-  report  dj^d  not  begin  to  be  the  most  of 
what  he  was  getting. 


Sometimes  clergymen  but  slightly  acquainted 
with  the  theatrical  business  are  surprised  when 
traveling  through  small  towns  to  see  lithographs 
and  posters  displaying  the  features  of  great  stars 
of  the  theatrical  and  operatic  world,  who  are 
billed  to  appear  in  some  local  opera  house  about 
two  sizes  larger  than  a  cigar-box.  The  portraits 
are  familiar,  the  names  under  them  are  not; 
you  may  recognize  the  features  of  Joe  Jefferson 
and  Adelina  Patti,  with  labels  on  them  establish- 

124 


^f   IWbat  tors,  ffortescue  2>l&.   «^ 

ing  their  identity  as  "Comical  Maginnis,  the 
Monkey  Mugger,"  and  "Sadie  Sylvester,  the 
Society  Clog  Artiste."  These  are  what  are 
known  as  "Stock-printing,"  and  it  is  pleasant 
to  reflect  that  the  printers  who  get  them  up  for 
a  fraud  on  the  public  rarely  are  able  to  collect 
their  bills  from  the  actors  and  actresses  that  use 
them,  and  that  the  audiences  that  go  to  such 
shows  don't  know  the  difference  between  Adelina 
Patti  and  an  oyster  patty. 

This  explanation  of  an  interesting,  custom 
is  made  to  forestall  the  reader's  surprise  at 
learning  that  two  years  and  a  half  after  her 
retirement  from  the  stage,  and  ten  years,  at 
least,  after  the  retirement  of  such  of  her  youth 
ful  charms  as  might  have  justified  the  exhibi 
tion,  the  portrait  of  Mrs.  Fortescue,  arrayed  in 
silk  tights,  of  a  most  constricted  pattern  —  not 
constrained  at  all,  simply  constricted  —  decorated 
scores  of  fences  in  what  theatrical  people  call 
the  "  'Quawket  Circuit,"  which  circuit  includes 
the  -charming  and  presumably  salubrious  shades 
of  Tophill.  There  was  no  mistaking  Mrs.  For- 
tescue's  face ;  Mrs.  Fortescue's  attire  might  have 
given  rise  to  almost  any  sort  of  mistake.  The 
name  tinder  the  picture  was  not  that  of  Mrs. 
Fortescue ;  it  was  that  of  a  much  advertised 
young  person  whose  "dramatic  speciality"  was 
entitled  "Too  Much  for  London;  or,  Oh,  My! 
Did  you  Ever ! " 


Now   it    is    necessary   to    disinter    old    Mrs. 
Filley  for   a   moment,    and   to   smirch   her   char- 
123 


"Sbort  Sfjes." 


acter     a     little     by    way    of     introducing     some 
excuse   for   what    Mrs.    Fortescue   did. 

By  the  time  Mrs.  Fortescue  had  cooked  her 
third  report,  she  had  found  out  that  the  old  lady 
had  not  quite  kept  faith  with  her  employer.  At 
the  Tophill  Institute  she  had  represented  herself 
as  Mr.  Filley's  mother,  gaining  thereby  much  con 
sideration  and  many  cups  of  tea.  So  that  when 
she  died,  with  the  rest  of  her  secret  hidden  from 
all  but  Mrs.  Fortescue,  the  latter  lady,  having 
fully  made  up  her  mind  to  appropriate  the  job, 
felt  that  it  behooved  her  to  go  her  predecessor 
one  better,  and  when  she  made  her  appearance 
at  Tophill  it  was  in  the  character  of  Mr.  Filley's 
newly  married  wife.  She  told  the  sympathetic 
all  about  it,  how  Mr.  Filley  and  she  had  known 
each  other  from  childhood,  how  he  had  always 


\s*~^ 


I2f> 


^    Mbat  ASrs.  tfortescue 

loved  her,  how  she  had  wedded  another  to  please 
her  family,  how  the  other  had  died,  and  Mr.  Filley 
had  renewed  his  addresses,  how  she  had  staved 
him  off  (I  am  not  quoting  her  language)  until  his 
dear  old  mother  had  died,  and  left  him  so  help 
less  and  lonely  that  she  really  had  to  take  pity  on 
him.  Mrs,  Filley  No.  2.  got  all  the  consideration 
she  wanted,  and  the  principal  sent  out  for  cham 
pagne  for  her,  under  the  impression  that  that  was 
the  daily  and  hourly  drink  in  all  millionaire  fami 
lies.  He  never  found  out  otherwise  from  Mrs. 
Filley,  either. 

Probably  Mrs.  Fortescue-Filley  had  calcu 
lated  on  keeping  up  her  pretty  career  of  imposture 
until  her  time  of  probation  at  the  Home  was  up, 
and  she  could  withdraw  her  entrance  fee  and 
vanish  at  once  from  'Quawket  and  Tophill.  She 
had  the  report  business  well  in  hand;  her  em 
ployer  occasionally  wrote  her  for  detailed  informa 
tion  on  minor  points  of  the  child's  work  or  per 
sonal  needs,  but  in  general  expressed  himself 
perfectly  satisfied;  and  she  felt  quite  safe,  so  far 
as  he  was  concerned,  when  he  commissioned  her 
to  put  the  child  through  an  all-round  examina 
tion,  and  sent  her  fifty  dollars  extra  with  his 
"highest  compliments"  on  her  manner  of  doing 
it.  Indeed,  in  this  she  was  no  humbug.  She 
could  have  put  the  principal,  himself,  through  his 
scholastic  facings  if  she  had  cared  to. 

But  the  appearance  of  those  unholy  portraits 
came  without  warning,  and  did  their  work  thor 
oughly.  Even  if  it  had  not  been  that  every  child 
in  the  institute  could  recognize  that  well-known 
countenance,  a  still  more  damning  disclosure 
came  in  the  prompt  denunciation  of  the  fraud 
127 


*p    More  "Sbort  Sir.es."    ^ 

by  the  "  Indignant  Theatre  Goer "  with  a  long 
memory,  who  wrote  to  the  local  paper  to  protest 
against  the  profanation,  as  he  put  it,  of  the  fea 
tures  of  a  peerless  Mrs.  Fortescue,  once  an  orna 
ment  of  the  stage,  and  now  dwelling  in  retirement 
in  'Quawket.  Ordinary,  common,  plain,  every 
day  gossip  did  the  rest. 

Mrs.  Fortescue  saw  the  posters  on  her  way 
to  Tophill,  but  she  dauntlessly  presented  herself 
at  the  portal.  She  got  no  further.  The  prin 
cipal  interposed  himself  between  her  and  his 
shades  of  innocents,  and  he  addressed  that  crea 
ture  of  false  pretenses  in  scathing  language  —  or 
it  might  have  scathed  if  the  good  man  had  not 
been  so  angry  that  he  talked  falsetto. 
It  did  not  look  as  if  there  were  much 
in  the  situation  for  Mrs.  P'ortescue, 
but  it  would  be  a  strange  situation 
out  of  which  the  old  lady  could  not 
extract  just  the  least  little  bit  of 
acting.  She  drew  herself  up  in  ma 
jestic  indignation,  hurled  the  calum 
nies  back  at  the  astonished  principal,  and  with  a 
magnificent  threat  to  bring  Mr.  Filley  right  to 
the  spot  to  utterly  overwhelm  and  confute  him, 
she  swept  away,  leaving  the  Institute  looking 
two  sizes  smaller,  and  its  principal  looking  no 
particular  size  at  all. 


And,  what   is  more,  she   did,   for  her  mag 
nificent  dramatic  outburst  made  her  fairly  acting- 
drunk.     She  could  not  help  herself;  she  was  ine-" 
128 


^    "Wflbat  flfcrs.  tforteacue  2>t£>.    •$* 

briated  with  the  exuberance  of  her  own  verbosity, 
to  use  a  once  famous  phrase,  and  she  simply  had 
to  go  off  on  a  regular  histrionic  bat. 

She  went  straight  off  to  the  old  Filley  Manor 
House  at  the  extreme  end  of  'Quawket  township ; 
she  bearded  the  millionaire  builder  in  his  great 
cool,  darkened  office,  among  his  mighty  plans  and 
elevations  and  mysterious  models,  and  she  told 
that  great  man  the  whole  story  of  her  imposture 
with  such  a  torrent  of  comic  force,  with  such 
marvelous  mimicry  of  the  plain-spoken  Mrs.  Filley 
and  the  prim  principal,  and  with  so  humorous  an 
introduction  of  the  champagne  episode  that  her 
victim  lay  back  in  his  leather  arm-chair,  slapped 
his  sturdy  leg,  roared  out  mighty  peals  of  laugh 
ter,  told  her  she  was  the  most  audacious  little 
woman  in  the  whole  hemisphere,  and  that  he 
never  heard  of  anything  so  funny  in  his  life,  and 
that  he  'd  call  down  any  number  of  damn  school 
masters  if  she  wanted  him  to. 

"  I  don't  see  how  we  can  arrange  a  retro 
active,  Ma'am;  I  'm  a  little  too  old  for  that  sort 
of  thing,  I  'm  afraid.  But  I  '11  tell  you  what  I 
can  do.  I  '11  send  my  agent  at  once  to  take 
the  child  out  of  school,  and  I  '11  see  that  my 
man  does  n't  give  him  any  satisfaction  or  a 
chance  for  explanation. 

"  Why,  damn  it ! "  concluded  the  hearty  Mr. 
Filley;  "if  I  ever  see  the  little  prig  I  '11  tell 
him  I  think  it  is  a  monstrous  and  great  conde 
scension  on  your  part  to  let  yourself  be  known 
as  the  wife  of  a  plain  old  fellow  like  me.  Why 
does  n't  a  man  know  a  handsome  woman  when 
he  sees  her?" 

"  Then  I  am  forgiven  for  all  my  wicked- 
129 


V    More  "Sbort  St£e0."    V 

ness?"  said   Mrs.  Fortescue  —  but,  oh!  how  she 
said  it! 

"  Forgiveness  ?  "  repeated  Mr.  Fiiley,  thought 
fully.  "Yes;  I  think  so."  Then  he  rose,  crossed 
the  room  to  a  large  safe,  in  which  he  opened  a 
small  drawer.  From  this  he  took  a  small  pack 
age  of  papers  which  he  placed  in  Mrs.  Fortes- 


cue's  hands.  She  recognized  her  own  reports, 
and  also  a  curious  scrawl  on  a  crumpled  and 
discolored  piece  of  paper,  which  also  she  prompt 
ly  recognized.  It  was  a  "screw"  that  had  held 
three  cents'  worth  of  snuff,  and  she  had  seen  it 
in  Mrs.  Filley's  hand  just  about  the  time  that 
dear  old  lady  was  passing  away.  She  read  it 
now  for  the  first  time : 

1 30 


"  dere  mr  Filley  i  kno  that  fort  escew 
woman  is  gone  to  kepon  senden  them  re  ports 
an  nottel  you  ime  dedd  but  iam  Sara  Filley." 

"  She  sent  that  to  me,"  said  Mr.  Filley,  "  by 
Doctor  Butts,  the  house  physician,  and  between 
us  we  managed  to  get  a  '  line  '  on  you,  Mrs. 
Fortescue ;  so  that  there  's  been  a  little  duplicity 
on  both  sides." 

Mrs.  Fortescue  looked  at  him  with  admira 
tion  mingled  with  respect ;  then  she  looked 
puzzled. 

"  But  why,  if  you  knew  it  all  along,  why 
did  you — " 

"  Why  did  I  let  you  go  on  ? "  repeated  Mr. 

10  131 


•y+   flSore  "Sbort  Sties."    ^ 

Filley.  "  Well,  you  Ve  got  to  have  the  whole 
duplicity,  1  see."  He  went  back  to  the  drawer 
and  took  out  another  object.  It  was  a  faded 
photograph  of  a  young  lady  with  her  hair  clone 
up  in  a  net,  and  with  a  hat  like  a  soap-dish 
standing  straight  up  on  her  head. 

"  Twenty-five  years  ago,"  said  Mr.  Filley, 
"boy;  three  dollars  a  week  in  an  architect's 
office ;  spent  two-fifty  of  them,  two  weeks  run 
ning,  for  flowers  for  that  young  lady  when  she 
played  her  first  engagement  in  New  Haven. 
Walked  there.  Paid  the  other  fifty  cents  to  get 
into  the  theatre.  Lived  on  apples  the  rest  of 
the  week.  Every  boy  does  it.  Never  forgets 
it.  Place  always  remains  soft." 

And,  as  Mrs.  Fortescue  sat  and  looked  long 
and  earnestly  at  the  picture,  a  soft  color  came 
into  her  face  that  was  born  rather  of  memory 
than  of  her  love  for  acting;  and  yet  it  wonder 
fully  simulated  youth  and  fresh  beauty  and  a 
young  joy  in  life. 


132 


"THE    MAN    WITH    THE    PINK 
PANTS." 


THE    MAN    WITH    THE    PINK    PANTS." 


[HIS  is  a  tale  of  pitiless  and   persistent 
vengeance,  and  it  shows  by  what  sim 
ple   means  a   very   small  and   unim 
portant    person    may    bring    about 
the  undoing  of  the  rich,  great  and 
influential.      It  was  told  to  me  by 
my   good  -friend,   the  Doctor,   as  we 
strolled  through  the  pleasant   suburbs 
of   a   pretty    little   city  that   is   day   by 
day    growing    into    greatness    and    ugliness,    as 
what  they  call  a  manufacturing  centre. 

We  had  been  watching  the  curious  antics 
of  a  large  man  who  would  have  attracted  atten 
tion  at  any  time  on  account  of  his  size,  his 
luxuriant  hair  and  whiskers,  and  the  strange  con 
dition  of  the  costly  clothing  he  wore  —  a  frock- 
coat  and  trousers  of  the  extremes!  fashion,  a 
rolling  white  waist  -  coat,  gray  -  spatted  patent- 
leathers,  and  a  silk  hat.  But  all  these  fine  arti 
cles  of  apparel  were  much  soiled  in  places,  his 
coat-collar  was  half  turned  up,  the  hat  had  met 
with  various  mishaps,  his  shoes  were  scratched 
and  dusty,  his  cravat  ill -tied,  and  altogether  his 
appearance  suggested  a  puzzling  combination  of 
prosperity  and  hard  luck.  His  doings  were 
stranger  than  his  looks.  He  tacked  cautiously 
134 


"Cbe 


Wttb  Cbe  pink  pants." 


from    side    to    side    of   the    way,     peered    up    a 
cross-street  here  ;   went  slowly  and  cautiously  up 
another  for  a  few  yards,   only  to  return   and  to 
efface   himself  for   a   moment   behind   a 
tree  or  in  a  doorway. 

Suddenly  he  gave  signs  of 
having  caught  sight  of  somebody 
far  up  a  narrow  lane.  Promptly 
bolting  into  the  nearest  front 
yard,  he  got  behind  the  syringa 
bush  and  waited  patiently  until 
another  man,  smaller^  but  much 
more  active,  hurried  sharply 
down  the  lane,  glancing  sus 
piciously  around.  This  second 
person  missed  seeing  the  big 
man,  and  after  waiting  irreso 
lutely  a  moment  or  two,  he 
hailed  a  street-car  going  toward 
the  town.  At  the  same  time  an 
other  car  passed  him  going  in 
the  opposite  direction.  With 
incredible  agility,  the  large  man 
darted  from  behind  the  syringa  bush  and  made 
the  second  car  in  the  brief  second  the  little  man's 
back  was  turned.  Swinging  himself  inside,  the 
figures  on  the  rear  platform  promptly  concealed 
him  from  view,  and  as  he  was  whirled  past  us 
we  could  distinctly  hear  him  emit  a  tremendous 
sigh  or  puff  of  profound  relief. 

"You  don't  know  him?"  said  the  Doctor, 
smiling.  "Yes,  you  do;  at  least,  you  have 
seen  him  before;  and  I  will  show  you  him  in 
his  likeness  as  you  saw  him  two  little  years  ago. 

"Such  as   you  see  that  man   to-day,"   con- 
rjf 


Sbort  Stjee."   V 

tinued  the  Doctor,  as  we  strolled  toward  the 
town,  "he  is  entirely  the  creation  of  one  small 
and  insignificant  man;  not  the  man  you  just 
saw  watching  for  him,  but  another  so  very  in 
significant  that  his  name  even  is  forgotten  by 
the  few  who  have  heard  it.  I  alone  remember 
his  face.  Nobody  knows  anything  else  that 
throws  light  on  his  identity,  except  the  fact 
that  he  was  on  one  occasion  addressed  as 
'Mr.  Thingumajig,'  and  that  he  is  or  was  a 
writer  for  the  press,  in  no  very  great  way  of 
business.  Now  let  us  turn  down  Main  Street, 
and  I  will  show  you  the  man  he  reduced  to 
the  ignominious  object  we  have  just  been 
watching." 

We  soon  stopped  at  a  photograph  gallery, 
and  the  Doctor  led  me,  in  a  way  that  showed 
that  his  errand  was  not  a  rare  one,  to  a  little 
room  in  the  rear,  where,  on  a  purple  velvet 
background,  hung  a  nearly  life-size  crayon  por 
trait.  It  represented  a  large  gentleman  —  the 
large  gentleman  whom  we  had  just  seen  — 
attired  in  much  similar  garments,  only  that  in 
the  picture  his  neatness  was  spotless  and  per 
fect.  Not  a  wrinkle,  not  a  stain  marred  him 
from  top  to  toe.  He  stood  in  the  graceful 
and  dignified  attitude  of  one  who  has  been  set 
up  by  his  fellow-citizens  to  be  looked  at  and 
admired,  and  who  knows  that  his  fellow-citizens 
are  only  doing  the  right  thing  by  him.  His 
silk  hat  was  jauntily  poised  upon  his  hip,  and 
the  smile  that  illuminated  his  moustache  and 
whiskers  was  at  once  genial,  encouraging,  con 
descending,  and  full  of  deep  religious  and  po 
litical  feeling.  It  was  hardly  necessary  to  look 


^    "Cbe  flfean  mitb  Cbe  iMnft  pants."   -^ 

at  the  superb  gilt  inscription  below  to  know 
that  that  portrait  was  "Presented  by  the  Vestry 
of  St.  Dives  Church,  on  the  Occasion  of  his 
Retirement  from  their  Body  to  Assume  the 
Burden  of  Civic  Duties  in  the  Assembly  of  the 
State  that  Counts  Him  Among  her  Proudest 
Ornaments." 


"Mr.   Silo!"  cried   I. 

"Mr.  Silo,"  said  the  Doctor;  "but  he  did 
not  go  to  the  Assembly,  and  that  picture  has 
never  been  presented.  When  you  saw  him  to 
day  he  was  running  away  from  his  brother-in- 
law,  to  get  to  New  York  to  go  on  any  sort 
of  a  spree  to  drown  his  misery.  Come  along, 
and  you  shall  hear  the  tale  of  a  fallen  idol. 
And  if,  as  you  listen,  an  ant  should  cross  your 

'37 


"Sbort  Stjes."    ^ 

path,  do  not  step  on  it.  Mr.  Silo  stepped 
upon  an  ant,  and  the  ant  made  of  him  the 
thing  you  saw." 

I  do  not  tell  this  story  exactly  in  the  Doc 
tor's  own  words,  though  I  will  let  it  look  as 
if  I  did.  The  trouble  of  letting  non- literary 
people  tell  stories  in  their  own  language  is  that 
the  "says  I's,"  and  the  "says  he's,"  and  the 
"  well,  this  man  "  passages,  and  "  then  this  other 
man  I  was  telling  you  about "  interpolations  take 
up  so  much  of  the  narrative  that  a  story  like 
this  could  not  be  read  while  a  pound  of  candles 
burned. 

But  here  is  about  the  way  the  Doctor  ought 
to  have  told  it  : 

I  do  not  wish  to  undervaluate  the  good  in 
fluence  of  Mr.  Silo  in  our  city.  He  has  been 
a  large  and  enterprising  investor.  He  has  built 
up  the  town  in  many  ways.  He  has  been  chari 
table  and  patriotic.  He  was  a  good  man;  but 
he  was  not  a  saint.  And  a  man  has  to  be  a 
saint  to  boom  town  lots  and  keep  straight.  No ; 
I  '11  go  further  than  that  —  it  can't  be  done! 
George  Washington  could  n't  have  boomed  town 
lots  and  kept  straight.  And  Silo,  as  you  can  see 
by  those  whiskers,  was  no  George  Washington. 
Real  estate  is  n't  sold  on  the  Golden  Rule,  you 
know.  There  were  times  when  it  was  mighty 
lucky  for  Silo  that  he  was  six  feet  high  and 
weighed  two  hundred  pounds. 

I  don't  know  the  details  of  the  transac 
tion,  but  I  am  afraid  that  Silo  treated  the 
little  newspaper  man  pretty  shabbily.  He  was 
a  decent,  hard-working,  unobtrusive  little  fellow, 
and  he  and  his  wife  had  been  scraping  and 
rj* 


-y   "Cbe  /foan  "Wflitb  Cbe  fcfnft  pants."   ^r 

saving  for  years  and  years  to  buy  a  house 
with  a  garden  to  it,  in  just  such  a  town  as 
this.  Well,  no,  that  's  not  the  way  to  put  it. 
They  had  fixed  on  a  particular  house  in  this 
particular  town,  and  they  had  been  waiting 
several  years  for  the  lease  of  it  to  fall  in. 
They  were  ready  with  the  price,  and  I  do  not 
doubt  that  Silo  or  his  agents  had  at  one  time 
accepted  their  offer  for  the  place.  But  when 
the  time  came,  Silo  backed  out,  refused  to  sell, 
and  disowned  the  whole  transaction. 

That,  in  itself,  was  a  mean   act.      It  was  a 
trifling  matter  to  Silo,  but  it  was  a  biggest  kind 


of  matter  to  the  other  man  and  his  wife.  They 
had  set  their  hearts  on  that  particular  house; 
they  had  stinted  themselves  for  a  long,  long 
time  to  lay  up  the  money  to  buy  it;  and 
probably  no  other  house  in  the  whole  world 
could  ever  be  so  desirable  to  those  two  people. 
But  that  was  n't  the  worst  of  it.  The  man 
might  have  put  up  with  his  disappointment,  and 
perhaps  even  have  forgiven  Silo  for  the  shabby 
trick.  But  Silo,  I  suppose,  felt  ashamed  of 
130 


V   dfcore  "Sbort  Sixes."    V 

himself  and  went  further  than  he  had  meant  to, 
in  trying  to  lash  himself  into  a  real  good, 
honest  indignation.  At  least,  that  is  my  guess 
at  it;  for  Silo  was  neither  brutal  nor  stupid  by 
nature;  but  on  this  occasion  he  had  the  in 
credible  cussedness  to  twit  the  little  man  on 
his  helplessness.  It  was  purely  a  question  of 
veracity  between  the  two,  and  Silo  pointed  out 
that,  as  against  him,  nobody  would  take  the 
stranger's  word.  That  was  true;  but,  good 
Lord !  Silo  himself  told  me  subsequently  that  it 
was  the  meanest  thing,  under  the  circumstances, 
that  he  ever  heard  one  man  say  to  another. 
He  always  maintained  that  he  was  right  about 
the  sale;  but  he  admitted  that  his  roughing  of 
the  poor  fellow  was  inexcusable ;  and  the  thing 
that  graveled  him  most  and  frightened  him  most 
in  the  end  was  that  he  had  called  the  poor 
man  "  Mr.  Thingumajig."  He  had  not  caught 
the  real  name;  he  only  remembered  that  it  had 
some  sort  of  a  foreign  sound  that  suggested 
"Thingumajig"  to  his  mind. 

Now,  all  that  Silo  had  had  before  him 
previous  to  that  outburst  was  only  a  plain 
case  of  angry  man ;  but  from  that  time  on 
he  had  ahead  of  him  through  his  pathway  in 
life  an  incarnation  of  human  hatred,  out  for 
vengeance,  and  bound  to  have  it. 

"Well,  now  the  fun  of  the  thing  comes 
in,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"I   should  think  it  was  high  time,"  said  I. 


There    was    nothing    very    unusual    in    that 
little  episode;    but  somehow   it  got    public,  and 
140 


•y    "Sbe  d&an  "Wattb  Cbe  flMnfc  pants."    y 

was  a  good  deal  talked  about;  although,  as 
I  said,  hardly  anybody  knew  the  stranger,  even 
by  name.  But,  of  course,  it  was  well  nigh  for 
gotten  six  months  later,  when  the  newspaper 
man  came  to  the  front  again. 

His  reappearance  took  the  form  of  such 
a  singular  exhibition  of  meekness  that  it  ought 
to  have  made  Silo  suspicious,  to  say  the  least. 
But  he  was  a  bit  of  a  bully;  and,  like  all 
bullies,  it  was  hard  for  him  to  believe  that 
a  man  who  did  not  bluster  could  really  mean 
fight.  Perhaps  he  had  no  chance  of  mercy  at 
that  time ;  but  if  he  did  he  threw  it  away. 

The  stranger  wrote  to  the  local  paper  a 
polite,  even  modest  letter,  stating,  very  moder 
ately,  his  grievance  against  Mr.  Silo.  He 
further  proposed  a  scheme,  the  adoption  of 
which  would  obviate  all  possibilities  of  such 
misunderstanding.  I  have  forgotten  what  the 
scheme  was.  It  was  not  a  good  one,  and  I 
know  now  that  it  was  not  meant  to  be.  The 
local  paper  was  the  Echo.  It  was  run  by  a 
shiftless  young  man  named  Meecham ;  and,  of 
course,  Silo  had  him  deep  in  his  debt;  and, 
of  course,  again,  Silo  more  or  less  ran  the 
paper.  So,  when  that  letter  arrived,  Meecham 
showed  it  to  Silo,  and  Silo  gave  new  cause 
of  offense  by  violating  the  honorable  laws  of 
newspaper  controversy,  and  answering  back  in 
the  very  same  number  of  the  paper.  The 
matter  of  his  reply  was  also  injudicious.  He 
lost  his  temper  at  once  when  he  saw  that  the 
letter  was  signed  "  Mr.  Thingumajig,"  and  he 
characterized  both  the  plan  and  its  proposer  as 
"  preposterous,"  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 

f4T 


that  word  "  preposterous "  was  just  the  word 
that  the  other  man  was  setting  a  trap  for. 
At  any  rate,  he  got  it,  and  he  wanted  nothing 
better.  Here  is  his  reply: 

AN  OPEN  LETTER  TO   P.  Q.  SILO,  ESQ. 
MY   DEAR  MR.  SILO: 

I  greatly  regret  that  my  little  scheme  for  the 
simplification  of  the  relations  between  intending 
purchasers  and  non-intending  sellers  (so-called) 
of  real  estate  should  have  fallen  under  your  dis 
approbation.  Of  course,  I  do  not  attempt  to 
question  your  judgement;  but  you  must  allow  me 
to  take  exception  to  the  language  in  which  that 
judgement  is  expressed;  which  is  at  once  inap 
propriate  and  insulting.  You  call  me  and  my 
scheme  "preposterous;"  and  this  shows  that  you 


^    "Cbe  Man  IClitb  Cbe  flMnfc  fcants."    V 

do  not  know  the  meaning  of  that  frequently 
misused  word.  "Preposterous"  is  a  word  that 
may  be  properly  applied  to  a  scheme  that  puts 
the  cart  before  the  horse  —  "having  that  first 
which  ought  to  be  last,"  as  Mr.  Webster's  Inter 
national  Dictionary  puts  it  —  or  to  a  thing  or 
creature  "  contrary  to  nature  or  reason ;  not 
adapted  to  the  end;  utterly  and  glaringly  foolish; 
unreasonably  absurd;  perverted."  If  you  want 
an  instance  of  its  proper  application,  the  word 
"preposterous"  might  fitly  be  used  in  all  its 
senses  to  describe  your  own  brief  but  startling 
appearance  on  Thursday  evening  last,  between 
the  hours  of  nine  and  ten,  in  a  certain  quiet 
street  of  New  York,  in  a  pair  of  pink  pants. 
I  remain,  dear  sir, 

Yours  very  truly, 

MR.  THINGUMAJIG. 

That  was  all.  Nothing  more.  But,  as  the 
lineman  said  of  the  two  -  thousand  volt  shock, 
"it  is  n't  necessary  to  see  some  things  to  know 
that  they  're  there." 

Now  I  want  you  to  note  the  devilish 
ingenuity  of  that  phraseology.  To  speak  of 
"pink  trousers"  would  serve  only  to  call  up  an 
unattractive  mental  picture.  "Pink  breeches" 
would  only  suggest  the  satin  knee-breeches  of 
a  page  in  a  comic  opera;  but  "pink  pants"  is 
a  combination  you  can't  get  out  of  your  head. 
It  is  not  English;  the  word  "pants"  is  a  vulgar 
contraction  of  the  word  pantaloons,  and  we 
don't  wear  pantaloons  in  these  days.  But 
"pants"  is  the  funniest  word  of  its  size  that 
ever  was  invented,  and  it  is  just  about  the 
143 


^    /Ifcore  "Sbort  Stjes."    ^ 

right  word  for  the  hideous  garment  it  belongs 
to.  And  whether  there  's  any  reason  or  logic 
in  it  or  not,  when  I  put  those  two  little  cheap 
words  together  and  say  "pink  pants,"  I  am 
certain  of  two  things.  First,  you  have  got  to 
smile;  second,  you  can't  forget  it  to  save  your 
neck.  And  that 's  what  Mr.  Thingumajig  knew. 
I  think  he  had  everything  "laid  out  in  his  mind 
just  as  it  was  going  to  happen. 

Meecham  got  that  letter,  and  laid  it  aside 
to  show  to  Silo;  but  as  he  sat  at  his  desk 
and  worked,  the  salient  phrase  kept  bobbing 
around  in  his  mind ;  and,  finally,  he  said  aloud : 

"  Pink  pants !  What  in  thunder  are  pink 
pants,  anyway?" 

His  foreman  heard  him,  and  looked  at  him 
in  amazement. 

"  Pink  pants,"  he  repeated ;  that  's  a  new 
one  on  me." 

Meecham  picked  up  the  letter  again,  and 
knit  his  brows  as  he  studied  it. 

"That  's  right,"  he  said;   "that 's  what  it  is." 

The  foreman  came  and  looked  over  his 
shoulder. 

"  '  Pink  pants,'"  he  repeated;  "that  's  right." 

A  man  who  had  just  come  into  the  office 
looked  at  the  two  speakers  with  astonishment. 
Meecham  knew  that  he  had  come  to  put  an 
advertisement  in  the  paper,  and  so  he  showed 
him  the  letter. 

"Well,  I  'm  damned!"  he  said.  "That  's 
right,  though.  It  's  '  pink  pants,'  on  your  life. 
But  where  in  blazes  would  a  man  get  pink  pants, 
anyway?  " 

WThen  Mr.  Silo  saw  the  letter  he  told  Mee- 

144 


cham  to  "burke"  it;  and  Meecham  put  it  in  the 
waste-basket.  The  next  day  Silo  made  him  take 
it  out  of  the  waste-basket  and  print  it.  He 
explained  that  so  many  people  had  asked  him 
about  the  letter  —  and  he  said  something  to 
Meecham  as  to  his  methods  of. running  the 
office  —  that  he  thought  it  better  to  print  it 
and  let  the  people  see  for  themselves  how  ab 
surd  it  was,  or  else  they  might  magnify  it  and 
think  he  was  afraid  to  print  it.  Meecham  did 
not  say  anything  at  the  moment.  He  did  not 
like  being  blown  up  any  more  than  the  rest  of 
us  do,  however;  and,  when  he  had  got  the  let 
ter  safely  printed  and  out  before  the  public,  he 
said  to  Silo: 

"  You  did  just  right  about  that  letter.  It 
would  n't  have  done  for  a  man  of  your  position 
to  have  folks  going  around  asking  where  you 
were  on  any  particular  Thursday  evening." 

"Why,  no!"  said  Silo;  "of  course  it  would 
145 


•V    /Bore  "Short  Sijcs."    <& 

n't.  Lemme  see;  was  that  the  day  the  infernal 
crank  picked  out  ?  " 

"  Thursday  night,  the  eleventh,"  said  Mee- 
cham,  his  finger  on  the  calendar;  "between  nine 
and  ten  o'clock  at  night.  Now,  of  course,  Mr. 
Silo,  you  know  just  where  you  were  then." 

"Why,  of  course!  "  said  Silo.  "Lemme  see, 
now.  Thursday  the  eleventh,  nine,  ten  at  night. 
Why,  I  was  —  no  —  why,  Thursday,  the  elmenth  ! 
—  Oh,  thunder!  —  no  —  it  can't  be!  Oh,  cer 
tainly  !  yes ;  that  's  all  right,  of  course !  Is  that 
Mr.  Smith  over  there,  the  other  side  of  the  street  ? 
I  've  got  to  speak  to  him  a  minute.  I  '11  see  you 
to-morrow.  Good-night,  my  boy ! " 


How  much  of  an  expert  in  human  nature 
are  you?  If  I  tell  you  that  Mr.  Silo  insisted  on 
having  every  first  impression  of  an  edition  of  the 
Echo  sent  to.  his  house  by  special  messenger  the 
instant  it  was  printed,  whether  he  was  at  home  or 
not,  and  that  he  did  this  just  to  make  Meecham 
feel  the  bitterness  of  the  servitude  of  debt,  what 
do  you  deduce  or  infer  from  that?  That  some 
body  else  was  tyrannizing  over  Silo?  Quite 
right!  Mrs.  Silo  was  a  woman  who  opened  all 
of  her  husband's  letters  —  that  came  to  the 
house.  And  she  looked  at  Silo's  paper  before  he 
saw  it  himself. 

And  when  Silo  got  home  that  day,  Mrs.  Silo 
was  waiting  for  him.  Mrs.  Silo  and  the  copy 
of  the  Echo,  with  the  letter  concerning  Mr.  Silo 
and  the  pink  pants.  Mrs.  Silo  wanted  to  know 
about  it.  If  Mr.  Silo  was  in  any  doubt  about 


"Sbe  flban  Witb  Cbe  pinfc  fcants." 


Thursday  night,  the  eleventh,  Mrs.  Silo  was  not. 
On  that  night  Mr.  Silo  had  been  expected  out 
on  the  train  leaving  New  York  at  eight  o'clock. 
He  had  arrived  on  the  train  leaving  New  York 
at  ten  o'clock.  There  was  no  trouble  at  all  .in 
identifying  the  night.  Mrs.  Silo  reminded  him 
that  it  was  the  night  of  the  day  when  he  took  in 
a  certain  hank  of  red  Berlin  wool  to  be  delivered 
to  Mrs.  Silo's  mother,  who  lived 
in  1 4th  Street ;  which,  as 
Mrs.  Silo  remarked,  is  not 
a  quiet  street.  She  also 
reminded  Mr.  Silo  that 
on  his  appearance  that 
evening  she  had  asked 
him  if  he  had  delivered 
that  hank  of  red  Berlin 
wool  at  the  house  of 
his  mother-in-law,  and 
he  had  answered  that 
he  had;  that  his  late 
ness  was  due  to  that 
cause ;  and,  further 
more,  that  his  dear 
mother-in  law  was  very 
well. 

To  this  Mr.  Silo  responded 

that    his   statements    on   Thursday   evening   were 
perfectly  correct. 

Then  Mrs.  Silo  told  him  that  since  the 
arrival  of  the  paper  she  had  made  a  trip  to  New 
York  to  inform  herself  as  to  the  true  condition 
of  affairs.  And,  furthermore,  on  Thursday  the 
eleventh,  Mrs.  Silo's  mother  had  been  confined 
to  her  bed  all  day  with  a  severe  neuralgic  head- 


•^    dfcore  "Sbort  Sijes."    ^ 

ache,  all  the  other  members  of  the  family  being 
absent  at  the  bedside  of  a  sick  relative;  the 
cook  had  had  a  day  off,  and  the  aged  waitress, 
who  had  been  in  the  family  twenty-five  years, 
was  certain  that  no  one  had  entered  the  house 
up  to  the  return  of  the  absent  members  at  eight, 
sharp,  when,  the  sick  relative  being  by  that  time 
a  dead  relative,  the  house  was  closed.  So  much 
for  furthermore.  Now,  moreover,  the  hank  of 
red  Berlin  wool  had  arrived  at  the  house  in 
Fourteenth  Street  four  days  after  the  date  in 


question.  It  came  through  the  United  States 
mail,  wrapped  up  in  a  sheet  of  tinted  note- 
paper,  scented  with  musk,  and  addressed  in  a 
sprawling  but  unmistakably  feminine  hand. 

Mr.  Silo  made  an  explanation.      It  was  un 
satisfactory. 


148 


dfcan  Illflitb  £be  pfnh  fcants."    V 

It  had  long  been  known  in  the  town  that 
suspicion  was  rife  in  the  Silo  household.  It  was 
now  known  that  suspicion  had  ripened  into 
certainty.  Events  of  that  kind  belong  to  what 
may  be  classed  as  the  masculine  or  strictly  neces 
sary  and  self-protective  scandal.  News  of  the 
event  goes  in  hushed  whispers  through  the  mas 
culine  community  —  the  brotherhood  of  man,  as 
you  might  say.  One  man  says  to  his  neighbor, 
"Let  's  get  Johnston  and  go  down  to  Coney 
Island  this  afternoon."  "  Johnston  is  n't  going 
down  to  Coney  Island  this  week,"  says  the 
neighbor.  "Johnston  miscalculated  his  wine  last 
night,  and  Mrs.  Johnston  is  good  people  to  leave 
alone  this  morning." 

In  a  case  so  much  more  serious  than  a  mere 
case  of  intoxication  as  Silo's  was  supposed  to  be, 
you  can  readily  understand  that  the  scandal  of 
the  pink  pants  spread  through  the  town  like  wild 
fire.  Silo  had  already  resigned  from  the  vestry, 
so  all  the  vestry  could  do  was  to  pitch  in  and 
see  that  he  did  not  get  the  ghost  of  a  show  as 
a  candidate  for  assembly.  It  was  not  much  of  a 
job,  under  the  circumstances,  and  the  vestry  did 
it  very  easily. 


"  Well,  but  what  had  Silo  done  ? "  I  asked 
the  Doctor.  "And  what  were  the  pink  pants, 
anyway  ?  " 

"  Silo   had  n't    done   a   thing,"    replied  the 

Doctor.      "Not  a  blessed  thing  —  except  to  tell 

a  tiny  little   bit  of  a  two-for-one-cent   fib   about 

that  hank  of  worsted.      I  met  Mr.  Thingumajig  in 

149 


•^   toore  "Sbort  Sixes."    <y 

Chicago  last  year,  and  he  told  me  how  he  worked 
the  whole  scheme.  The  gist  of  the  invention 
lay  in  the  <  pink  pants.'  Any  fool  can  put  up 
a  job  to  make  a  man's  wife  jealous;  but  it  takes 
the  genius  of  deathless  malevolence  to  invent  a 
phrase  sure  to  catch  every  ear  that  hears  it;  sure 
to  interest  and  puzzle  and  excite  every  mind  that 
gives  it  lodgment,  and  to  tie  that  phrase  up  to 
an  individuality  in  such  a  way  that  it  conveys 
an  accusation  almost  without  form  and  void,  and 
yet  hideously  suggestive  of  iniquity. 

"  That  is  just  what  the  little  newspaper  cuss 
did  with  Silo.  He  was  bent  on  revenge,  and  he 
gave  up  a  certain  portion  of  his  time  to  shadow 
ing  him.  You  must  remember  that,  while  he  had 
reason  to  remember  Silo,  Silo  had  hardly  any  to 
remember  him.  Well,  he  told  me  that  he  dogged 
Silo  for  days  —  months,  even  —  trying  to  catch 
him  in  some  wrong-doing.  But  Silo,  big  and 
blustering  as  he  looked,  with  his  whiskers  and 
his  knowing  air,  was  an  innocent,  respectable, 
henpecked  ass.  Outside  of  business,  all  that  he 
ever  did  in  New  York  was  to  go  to  his  mother- 
in-law's  house  at  his  wife's  bidding  to  execute 
shopping  commissions  and  the  like.  For  in 
stance,  this  hank  of  Berlin  wool  the  old  lady  had 
bought  for  her  daughter;  the  shade  was  wrong, 
and  the  daughter  sent  it  back.  Mr.  Thinguma 
jig  —  never  mind  his  name  now  —  had  been 
tracking  Silo  on  his  trips  to  Fourteenth  Street 
for  weeks,  and  had  just  learned  their  innocent 
nature.  His  soul  was  full  of  rage.  He  got  into 
a  green  car  with  Silo,  going  to  the  ferry.  The 
evening  was  hot.  Silo  dozed  in  the  corner  of 
the  car.  The  hank  of  red  Berlin  wool  lay  on 
150 


Cbe  fMnfc  pants." 


the  seat  beside  him.       Mr.   Thingumajig  saw  it, 
and  saw  the  letter  pinned  to  it,  addressed  by  Mrs. 
Silo  to  her  mother.      In  that  instant  he  conceived 
the  crude  basis  of  his  plot — 
to  appropriate  the  hank,  sup 
press  the   letter,  souse  the 
wool     with     cheap     per 
fume,    get    his    wife    to 
readdress  the  parcel  in 
her  worst   hand  —  and 
to  rely  in  pretty  good 
confidence      on      Silo's 
telling  a  lie  at  one  end 
or  both  ends  of  the  line 
about  the  missing  wool. 
Silo  was  not  much  of  a 
sinner,  but  a  man  who 
loses  his  wife's  hank  of 
Berlin    wool    and    goes 
home  and  owns  up  about 
it  is  a  good  deal  of  a  saint. 
The  chances  were  all  in  Mr.  Thingumajig's  favor." 


"  But,"  said  I,  "  when  you  had  met  Mr. 
Thingumajig  and  became  possessed  of  the  plot, 
why  did  n't  you  come  back  here  and  tell  all 
about  it,  and  clear  up  poor  Silo  ? " 

The  Doctor  looked  at  me  pityingly,  almost 
contemptuously. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  he  said,  as  if  he  were  talk 
ing  to  a  child,  "what  was  my  word  to  those  pink 
pants?  I  tried  it  on,  until  I  found  that  people 
simply  began  to  suspect  me,  and  to  think  that  I 
might  be  Silo's  accomplice  in  iniquity.  There 


V    fl&°re  "Sbort  Sfjes."   v 

was  n't  the  least  use  in  it.  If  I  talked  to  a  man, 
he  would  hear  me  through;  and  then  he  would 
wag  his  head  and  say,  '  That  's  all  very  well ;  but 
how  about  those  pink  pants?  If  there  were  n't 
any  pink  pants  how  did  they  come  to  be  men 
tioned?'  And  that  was  the  way  everywhere.  I 
could  explain  all  about  poor  Silo's  foolish  little  lie, 
and  they  would  say,  'Oh,  yes,  that  's  possible; 
a  man  might  lie  about  a  hank  of  wool  if  he  had 
the  kind  of  wife  Silo  's  got;  but  how  about  those 
pink  pants  ? '  And  when  it  was  n't  those  pink 
pants,  it  was  them  pink  pants.  And  after  a  while 
I  gave  it  up.  Silo  had  got  to  drinking  pretty 
hard  by  that  time,  in  order  to  drown  his  miseries ; 
and  of  course  that  only  confirmed  the  earlier  scan 
dal.  Now,  Silo  never  was  a  man  that  could  drink; 
it  never  did  agree  with  him,  and  he  has  got  so 
wild  recently  that  Mrs.  Silo  has  her  two  brothers 
take  turns  to  come  out  here  and  try  to  control 
him.  Of  course  that  makes  him  all  the  wilder." 

At  the  end  of  Main  Street  I  parted  from 
my  friend,  the  Doctor,  and  shortly  I  crossed  the 
pathway  of  another  citizen  who  had  seen  the  two 
of  us  bidding  good-by. 

"  He  's  a  nice  man,  the  Doctor  is,"  said 
the  citizen ;  "  but  the  trouble  with  him  is,  he  's 
altogether  too.  credulous  and  sympathetic.  Now, 
I  would  n't  be  surprised  if  he  'd  been  making 
some  defense  to  you  of  the  goings  on  of  that 
man  Silo.  He  's  a  sort  of  addled  on  that  sub 
ject.  May  be  it  's  just  pure  charity,  of  course ; 
and  may  be,  equally,  he  was  in  with  Silo  when 
Silo  was  n't  so  openly  disgraceful ;  but  if  you 
want  to  know  what  that  man  Silo  is,  I  '11  tell 
you.  The  people  around  here,  sir — the  people 
152 


who  ought  to  know  —  do  you  know  what  they 
call  him,  sir  ?  Well,  sir,  they  call  him,  <  The 
Man  with  the  Pink  Pants.'  And  do  you  sup 
pose  for  one  minute,  sir,  that  a  man  gets  a 
name  fixed  on  him  like  that  without  he  's  de 
served  it?  No,  sir;  your  friend  the^e  is  a  good 
man,  and  a  charitable  man,  but  as  for  judgement 
of  character,  he  ain't  got  it.  And  if  you  're  a 
friend  of  his,  you  '11  tell  him  that  the  less  he  has 
to  say  about  '  The  Man  with  the  Pink  Pants '  — 
the  better  for  him." 

153 


THE    THIRD     FIGURE     IN     THE 
COTILLION. 


THE     THIRD     FIGURE     IN     THE 
COTILLION. 


ROUND  the  little  island  of  Aus- 
serland  the  fishing  -  smacks  hover 
all  through  the  season.  They 
rarely  go  out  of  sight ;  or,  indeed, 
stand*  far  off  shore,  for  life  is  easy 
in  Ausserland,  and  the  famous  Aus- 
serland  herrings,  which  give  the  island 
its  prosperity,  are  oftenest  to  be  caught 
in  the  broad  reaches  of  shallow  water  that  sur 
round  the  island.  Beyond  these  reaches  there 
are  fish,  too ;  but  out  there  the  waters  are  more 
turbulent.  And  why  should  a  fisherman  risk  his 
life  and  his  beautiful  brown  duck  sails  in 
treacherous  seas,  when  he  has  his  herring-pond 
at  his  own  door  -  step,  so  to  speak.  And  they 
have  a  saying  in  Ausserland  that  if  you  are 
drowned  you  may  go  to  heaven;  but  certainly 
not  to  Ausserland. 

And  who  would  want  to  leave  Ausserland  ? 
Life  is  so  easy  there  that  it  takes  most  of  the 
inhabitants  about  ninety  years  to  die  —  and  even 
then  you  can  hardly  call  it  dying.  Life's  pendu 
lum  only  slows  down  day  by  day,  and  swings 
through  an  arc  that  imperceptibly  diminishes  as 


the  years  go  on,  until  at  last,  without  surprise, 
without  shock,  almost  without  regret,  so  gradual 
is  the  process,  you  perceive  that  it  has  stopped. 
And  then  the  whole  village,  all  in  Sunday  clothes, 
marches  out  to  the  little  graveyard  on  the  hill, 
and  somebody's  great  birchen  beer-mug  is  hung 
on  the  living-room  wall  in  memory  of  one  who 
ate  and  drank  and  slept,  and  who  is  no  more. 
There  are  rooms  in  those  old  houses  in  Ausser- 
land  where  the  wooden  mugs  hang  in  a  double 
row,  and  the  oldest  of  them  was  last  touched 
by  living  lips  in  days  when  the  dragon-ships  of 
the  Vikings  ploughed  that  Northern  sea. 

Ausserland  is  a  principality,  and  a  part  of 
a  mighty  empire;  but  except  that  it  has  to  pay 
its  taxes,  and  in  return  is  guaranteed  immunity 
from  foreign  invasion,  it  might  just  as  well  be 
an  independent  kingdom;  or,  rather,  an  inde 
pendent  state,  for  it  is  governed  by  Burgesses, 
elected  by  the  people  to  administer  laws  made 
hundreds  of  years  ago,  and  still  quite  good  and 
suitable.  If  a  man  steals  his  neighbor's  goods, 
he  is  put  in  the  pillory.  But  what  should  a 


V   fl&ore  "Sbort  Sir.es."    V 

man  steal  his  neighbor's  goods  for  when  he  has 
all  the  goods  that  he  wants  of  his  own  ?  The 
last  time  the  pillory  was  used  was  for  a  ship 
wrecked  Spanish  sailor  who  refused  to  go  to 
church  on  the  ground  of  a  rooted  prejudice 
against  the  Protestant  religion.  And  it  must 
have  been  a  singularly  comfortable  pillory,  for 
somehow  or  other  he  managed  to  carve  his 
name  on  it  during  the  hour  in  which  he  stood 
there  —  his  name  and  the  date  of  the  event, 
and  there  they  are  to  this  day :  "  Miguel  Diaz 
jul  6  1743."  My  own  opinion  is  that  they  did 
not  even  let  the  top-piece  down  on  him. 

The  men  of  Ausserland  are  not  liable  to 
conscription,  and  as  no  ships  of  war  ever  come 
to  their  odd  corner  of  the  sea,  they  know  no 
more  of  the  mighty  struggles  of  their  great 
empire  than  if  they  were  half  a  world  away. 
This  is  a  part  of  the  beautiful  understanding 
which  the  Ausserlanders  have  established  with 
their  hereditary  Prince  and  with  the  imperial 
government.  The  Prince  lives  at  the  court  of 
the  Emperor,  and  none  of  his  line  has  seen 
Ausserland  since  his  grandfather  was  there  in 
the  last  century  for  a  day's  visit.  Yet  his  rela 
tions  with  his  subjects  are  of  a  permanently 
pleasant  nature.  They  pay  him  his  taxes,  of 
which  he  hands  over  the  lion's  share  to  the 
government,  keeping  enough  for  himself  to  attire 
his  plump  person  in  beautiful  uniforms  and  tight 
cavalry  boots,  and  to  cultivate  the  most  beautiful 
port-wine  nose  in  the  whole  court.  The  amount 
of  the  taxes  has  been  settled  long  ago,  and  it 
is  always  exactly  the  same.  The  Ausserland 
fishermen  are  like  a  sort  of  deep-sea  Dutchmen, 
138 


Gbe  tTbiro  jfiflure  in  Gbe  Cotillion. 


independent,    sturdy   and    shrewd.      They    know 
just  how  much  they  ought  to  pay;   and  they  pay 
it,  and   not   one  soumarkee   more  or  less.      Ages 
ago  the  hereditary  Princes  discovered  that 
if  they  put  up  the   tax-rate,  the  herring 
fisheries   promptly    failed  just    in    the 
necessary    proportion    to    bring    the 
assessment  back  to  the  old  figure. 
When    they   lowered   the   rate   the 
accommodating  herring  came  back. 
It    was    a   curious   if  not    pleasing 
freak  of  nature  to  which  they  had 
to  accustom  themselves,  for  it  never 
would  have  done  to  leave  the  mar 
ket  open  to   any   other  supply   of 
herrings  than  the  famous  herrings 
of  Ausserland.      So    that   question 
settled  itself. 

Twice  a  year  the  finest  of  the  broad- 
breasted  fishing  smacks  sailed  for  the  distant 
mainland,  bearing  heavy  cargoes  of  dried  fish, 
and  beautiful  seashells  such  as  were  to  be  found 
nowhere  else.  Twice  a  year  they  came  back, 
bringing  cloths  and  calicos,  always  of  the  same 
quality,  color  and  pattern,  for  the  fashions  never 
change  in  Ausserland.  They  brought  also  drugs 
and  medicines,  school-books  and  pipes,  tools  and 
household  utensils  of  the  finer  sort,  more  delicate 
than  the  Ausserland  ironsmiths  could  fashion; 
brandy  and  cordials  and  wine  in  casks  great  and 
small,  and  the  few  other  articles  of  commerce 
for  which  they  were  dependent  upon  the  outer 
world ;  for  the  Ausserlanders  supplied  their  own 
needs  for  the  most  part,  spun  their  own  linen, 
tanned  their  own  leather,  built  their  own  boats, 

159 


"Sbort  Sixes.'*    ^ 

and  generally  "did"  for  themselves,  as  they  say 
in  New  England.  Then  it  was,  and  then  only, 
that  the  newspapers  came  to  Ausserland  —  a  six- 
months'  collection  of  newspapers  at  each  trip. 
And  the  Head  Burgess  read  them  for  the  whole 
town.  The  Head  Burgess  was  always  a  man 
who  had  reached  that  period  of  thrift  and  pros 
perity  at  which  it  seemed  futile  to  toil  longer, 
and  who  was  both  willing  and  able  to  give  his 
whole  leisure  to  affairs  of  state.  He  it  was  who 
collected  and  forwarded  the  taxes,  and  who  stood 
ready  to  punish  offenders,  should  any  one  feel 
tempted  to  offend.  The  Head  Burgess  always 
grumbled  a  good  deal,  and  talked  much  of  the 
burdens  of  public  life;  but  it  was  observant 
among  even  the  unobservant  Ausserlanders  that 
the  Head  Burgess  was  usually  the  fattest  man 
in  town;  and  the  post  was  much  sought  after 
because  few  Head  Burgesses  had  been  known  to 
die  under  ninety-two  or  three  years  of  age. 

As  a  rule,  the  Head  Burgess  read  slowly  and 
with  deliberation.  Of  a  June  afternoon,  when  the 
fishermen  came  in  from  their  day's  work,  he  would 
stroll  leisurely  down  to  the  wharves,  with  his  long 
pipe  with  the  painted  china  bowl,  and  would  give 
forth  the  news  of  the  day  to  the  fishermen. 

"  Three  families,"  he  would  say,  "  were 
frozen  to  death  in  Hamburg." 

"Ah,  indeed!  "  some  courteous  listener  would 
respond;  "and  when  was  that?" 

"  In  February  last,"  the  Head  Burgess  would 
reply;  "it  seems  scandalous,  does  it  not,  that 
people  should  never  learn  to  go  in-doors  and  keep 
the  fires  lighted  in  Winter?  Thank  heaven,  we 
have  no  such  idiots  here ! " 

160 


tbe  Cbiro  jfigure  in  £be  Cotillion, 


For  an  Ausserlander  can  never  understand 
what  it  means  to  be  poor  or  needy.  How  can 
anybody  want,  he  argues,  while  there  are  mil 
lions  of  herring  in  the  sea,  and  they  come  along 
every  year  just  at  the  same  time  ? 

In  Spring,  of  course,  the 
Head  Burgess  gave  the  Aus- 
serlanders  a  budget  of 
news  that  began  with  the 
preceding  Summer.  They 
listened  to  it  politely,  as 
they  listened  to  the  pas-  'L 
tor's  sermons.  Outside  of 
the  market -reports  they 
had  little  interest  in  the 
world  which  ate  their  her 
rings.  Still,  they  were  a  polite 
and  intelligent  people,  and  they 
were  willing  for  once  in  a  way  to 
lend  a  courteous  and  attentive  ear 
to  the  doings  and  sayings  of  people  who  were 
not  happy  enough  to  live  in  Ausserland.  Thus 
it  happened  that  they  knew,  several  months  after 
it  occurred,  of  the  death  of  the  reigning  Emperor 
and  the  accession  to  the  throne  of  his  son.  The 
news  was  received  with  just  the  least  shade  of 
disapproval.  The  preceding  Emperor  had  come 
to  the  throne  a  sick  man,  and  had  reigned  but  a 
short  time.  His  father  had  reigned  about  as 
long  as  an  Emperor  can  possibly  reign,  and  they 
felt  that  he  had  done  what  was  expected  of  him. 
They  hoped  that  their  Emperors  were  not  going 
to  get  into  the  habit  of  reigning  for  a  few  months 
and  then  dying.  It  was  annoying,  they  thought, 
to  have  to  learn  new  names  every  few  years. 


^   /Ifcore  "Sbort  Sijes."    <J^ 

So  it  is  not  remarkable  that  the  new  Em 
peror  had  been  several  months  on  his  throne 
before  the  good  people  of  Ausserland  learned 
that  he  was  a  very  peculiar  young  man,  with 
a  character  of  his  own,  and  with  a  passion,  that 
almost  amounted  to  a  mania,  for  re-establishing 
an  ancient  order  of  things  that  had  well  -  nigh 
perished  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Nor  is  it 
to  be  wondered  at  that,  considering  all  news  of 
the  court  as  frivolous  and  probably  fictitious, 
they  were  -utterly  ignorant  of  a  controversy  that 
had  divided  the  whole  social  system  of  the  em 
pire  into  two  camps.  Who  could  expect  that 
in  the  cosy,  well-furnished  rooms  of  the  weather- 
beaten  old  houses  of  Ausserland  it  should  be 
known  that  there  was  a  vast  commotion  in  the 
Imperial  court  over  the  new  cotillion  introduced 
by  the  Lord  Chamberlain  ?  It  was  a  charming 
cotillion,  all  agreed;  the  music  was  ravishing, 
and  the  figures  were  exquisitely  original ;  but 
the  third  figure  —  ah,  there  was  the  trouble!  — 
the  third  figure  had  not  met  with  the  approval 
of  the  matrons.  The  young  girls  and  the  very 
young  married  women  all  liked  it;  and  the  men 
were  as  a  unit  in  its  favor;  but  the  more  elderly 
ladies  thought  that  it  was  indelicate,  and  that 
it  afforded  opportunities  for  objectionable  famili 
arities.  A  hot  war  was  raged  between  the  two 
parties.  The  Emperor,  of  course,  was  arbiter. 
He  hesitated  long.  He  was  a  very  young  man, 
and  he  took  himself  very  much  in  earnest.  To 
him  a  matter  of  court  punctilio  had  an  impor 
tance  scarcely  second  to  that  of  the  fate  of  na 
tions.  As  soon  as  an  objection  was  offered,  he 
issued  an  edict  proscribing  the  performance  of 
162 


the  dance  of  dubious  propriety  until  such  time 
as  he  should  have  made  up  his  imperial  mind 
as  to  its  character.  For  three  months  its  fate 
trembled  in  the  balance.  Then  he  decided  that 
it  should  be  and  continue  to  be;  and  he  issued 
a  formal  proclamation  to  that  effect  —  the  first 
formal  proclamation  of  his  reign.  It  was  an  op 
portunity  for  the  re-introduction  of  ancient  and 
ancestral  methods  which  the  young  Emperor 
could  not  lose.  The  edict  had  gone  forth  in 
haste  by  word  of  mouth  and  by  notice  in  the 
daily  papers ;  but  he  resolved  that  the  procla 
mation  should  go  by  special  envoy  to  all  the 
principalities  that  composed  his  powerful  em 
pire.  Accordingly,  an  officer  of  high  rank,  spe 
cially  despatched  from  the  court,  read  his  Impe 
rial  Majesty's  proclamation  in  every  principality 
of  the  nation;  and  thereafter  it  was  legitimate 
and  proper  to  dance  the  third  figure  of  the  new 
Lord  Chamberlain's  cotillion  on  all  occasions  of 
lordly  festivities,  and  all  the  elderly  ladies  ac 
cepted  the  situation  with  a  cheerful  submissive- 


V   M>°re  "Sbort  Sijes."   if 

ness,  and  set  about  using  it  for  scandal-monger 
ing  purposes  with  promptitude  and  alacrity. 


Early  one  Midsummer  morning  a  strange 
fishing  -  smack  was  sighted  from  the  Ausserland 
wharves  far  out  at  sea,  beating  up  against  an 
obstinate  wind,  and  coming  from  the  direction 
of  the  mainland.  This  in  itself  was  enough  to 
cause  general  comment  and  to  stir  the  whole 
village  with  a  thrill  of  interest;  for  strange 
vessels  rarely  came  that  way,  except  under 
stress  of  storm;  and  though  the  sea  was  run 
ning  unusually  high  there  had  been  no  storm 
in  many  days.  Besides,  why  should  a  vessel 
obviously  unfitted  for  that  sort  of  sailing,  beat 
up  against  a  wind  that  would  take  her  to  the 
mainland  in  half  the  time  ?  Yet  there  she  was, 
making  for  the  island  in  long,  laborious  tacks. 
Everybody  stopped  work  to  look  at  her;  but 
work  was  suspended  and  utterly  thrown  aside 
when  she  hoisted  a  pennant  that,  according  to 
the  nautical  code,  signified  that  she  had  on 
board  an  Envoy  from  his  Imperial  Majesty. 

The  whole  town  was  astir  in  a  moment. 
The  shops  and  schools  closed.  The  village 
band  began  to  practice  as  it  had  never  prac 
ticed  before.  The  burgesses  and  other  officials 
donned  their  garments  of  state.  A  committee 
was  promptly  appointed  to  prepare  a  public 
banquet  worthy  of  the  Emperor's  messenger. 
The  children  were  sent  collecting  flowers,  and 
were  instructed  how  to  strew  them  in  his  path. 
The  bell-ringers  gathered  and  arranged  an  elabo- 
164. 


mM> 


rate  programme  of  chimes.  The  citizens  got 
into  their  Sunday  clothes,  which  were  most 
wonderful  clothes  in  their  way;  and  the  town- 
crier,  who  played  the  trumpet,  got  his  instru 
ment  out  and  polished  it  up  until  it  shone 
like  gold.  But  the  man  who  felt  most  of  the 
burden  of  responsibility  upon  his  shoulders  was 
the  Head  Burgess.  He  got  into  his  robes  of 
office  as  quickly  as  his  wife  and  his  three 
daughters  could  array  him,  and  then  he  hastened 
to  the  Rathhaus,  or  Town  Hall,  and  there  con 
sulted  the  archives  to  find  out  from  the  records 
of  his  predecessors  what  it  became  him  to  do 
when  his  Majesty's  Envoy  should  announce  his 


"Sbort  Sties."    ^ 

errand.  He  must  make  a  speech,  that  was 
clear,  for  the  honor  of  the  Island.  But  what 
speech  should  he  make?  He  could  not  com 
pose  one  on  the  instant  —  in  fact,  he  could  not 
compose  one  at  all.  What  had  his  forerunners 
done  on  like  occasions  ?  He  looked  over  the 
record  and  found  that  three  King's  Envoys  had 
landed  on  the  Island:  one  in  1699,  to  announce 
that  the  Island  had  been  ceded  by  one  kingdom 
to  another;  another  in  1764,  to  inform  the 
people  that  the  great -grandmother  of  the  heredi 
tary  Prince  was  dead;  and  another  in  1848, 
to  proclaim  that  the  Islanders'  right  of  exemption 
from  conscription  was  suspended.  In  not  one 
of  these  cases,  it  should  be  remarked,  did  the 
message  of  King,  Prince  or  Emperor,  change  the 
face  of  affairs  on  the  Island  in  the  smallest 
degree.  The  herring  market  remaining  stable, 
the  Ausserlanders  cared  no  whit  to  whom  they 
paid  taxes;  as  to  the  death  of  the  Prince's  great- 
grandmother,  they  simply  remarked  that  it  was  a 
pity  to  die  at  the  early  age  of  eighty-seven ;  and 
when  they  were  told  that  they  would  have  to  get 
up  a  draft  and  be  conscripted  into  the  army  or 
navy,  they  just  went  fishing,  and  there  the 
matter  dropped.  One  is  not  an  Ausserlander  for 
nothing. 

But  the  Head  Burgess  found  that  the  same 
speech  had  been  used  on  all  three  occasions.  It 
was  short,  and  he  had  little  difficulty  in  commit 
ting  it  to  memory,  for  it  took  the  ship  of  his 
Majesty's  Envoy  six  good  hours  to  get  into  port. 
This  was  the  speech  i 

"Noble  and  Honorable,  Well  and  High- 
Born  Sir,  the  people  of  Ausserland  desire  through 

/66 


^    Cbe  Cbtrfc  ffigure  in  Gbe  Cotillion,    y 

their  representative,  the  Head  Burgess,  to  affirm 
their  unwavering  loyalty  to  the  most  illustrious 
and  high-born  personage  who  condescends  to 
assume  the  government  of  a  loyal  and  inde 
pendent  populace,  and  to  express  the  hope  that 
Divine  Providence  may  endow  him  with  such 
power  and  capacity  as  properly  befit  a  so-situated 
ruler." 

So  heartily  did  the  whole  population  throw 
itself  into  the  work  of  preparing  to  receive  the 
distinguished  visitor,  that  everything  had  been  in 
readiness  a  full  hour,  when,  in  the  early  after 
noon,  the  fishing-smack  finally  made  her  landing. 
During  this  long  hour,  the  whole  town  watched 
the  struggles  of  the  little  boat  with  the  baffling 
wind  and  waves.  Everybody  was  in  a  state  of 
delighted  expectancy.  An  Emperor's  Envoy  does 
not  call  on  one  every  day,  and  his  coming  offered 
an  excuse  for  merry-making  such  as  the  prosper 
ous  and  easy-going  people  of  Ausserland  were 
only  too  willing  to  seize. 

So,  when  the  boat  made  fast  to  the  wharf, 
the  signal  guns  boomed,  and  the  people  cheered 
again  and  again,  and  threw  their  caps  in  the  air 
when  the  King's  Envoy  appeared  from  the  cabin 
and  returned  the  salute  of  the  Head  Burgess. 

And,  indeed,  the  King's  Envoy  was  a  most 
satisfactory  and  gratifying  spectacle  of  grandeur. 
He  was  so  grand  and  so  gorgeous  generally  that 
he  might  have  been  taken  for  the  hereditary 
Prince,  himself,  had  it  not  been  well  known  that 
the  color  of  the  hereditary  Prince's  nose  was 
unchangeable  —  being  what  the  ladies  call  a  fast 
red  —  whereas,  this  gentleman's  face  was  as 
white  as  the  Head  Burgess's  frilled  shirt-front. 


t^    flfcore  "Sbort  Sijes."    -y 

But  his  clothes!  So  splendid  a  uniform  was 
never  seen  before.  Some  of  it  was  of  cobalt 
blue  and  some  of  it  of  Prussian  blue,  and  some 
of  it  of  white;  and,  all  over,  in  every  possible 
place,  it  was  decorated  with  a  gold  lace  and  gold 
buttons  and  silken  frogs  and  tassels,  and  every 
other  device  of  beauty  that  ingenuity  could  sug 
gest,  with  complete  disregard  of  cost. 


And  then  His  Serene  Highness,  Herr  Graf 
Maximilian  von  Bummelberg,  of  Schloss  Bummel- 
fels  in  the  Schwarzwald,  stepped  on  the  wharf 
and  graciously  introduced  himself  to  the  repre 
sentative  of  the  people,  who  grasped  him  warmly 
by  the  hand  with  a  cordiality  untempered  by 

168 


y    Cbe  Cbirfc  ffigure  in  Cbe  Cotillion,    -y 

awe ;  and  the  people  shouted  again  as  they  saw 
the  two  great  men  together;  and  not  one  sus 
pected  the  anguish  hidden  by  that  martial  out 
side.  For,  of  course,  as  such  things  will  happen, 
the  Envoy  selected  to  carry  the  Emperor's  proc 
lamation  to  this  marine  principality  was  a  man 
who  had  never  been  to  sea  in  his  life,  and  who 
never  would  have  made  a  sailor  if  he  had  been 
kept  at  sea  until  he  was  pickled.  And  for 
eighteen  hours  the  unfortunate  messenger  of  good 
tidings  had  been  tossed  about  in  the  dark,  close, 
malodorous  little  cabin  of  a  fishing-smack  on  the 
breast  of  a  chopping  sea,  beating  up  against  a 
strong  head  wind.  And,  oh !  had  he  not  been 
sick?  Sick,  sick,  sick,  and  then  again  sick  — 
so  sick,  indeed,  that  he  had  had  to  hide  his 
gorgeous  clothes  under  a  sailor's  dirty  tarpaulin. 
This  made  him  feel  sicker  yet;  but,  though  in 
the  course  of  the  trip  he  lost  his  respect  for 
mankind,  including  himself,  for  royalty,  for 
religion,  for  life  and  for  death,  he  still  retained 
a  vital  spark  of  respect  for  his  beautiful  clothes. 
He  stood  motionless  upon  the  wharf  and  re 
turned  the  compliments  of  the  Head  Burgess  in 
a  husky  voice  that  sounded  in  his  own  ears 
strange  and  far  offi  The  Herr  Graf  Maximilian 
von  Bummelberg,  of  Schloss  Bummelfels  in  the 
Schwarzwald,  Envoy  of  his  Imperial  Majesty,  was 
waiting  for  the  ground  to  steady  itself,  for  it 
was  behaving  as  it  had  never  behaved  before,  to 
his  knowledge.  It  rolled  and  it  heaved,  it  flew 
up  and  it  nearly  hit  him  in  the  face,  then  it 
slipped  away  from  under  him  and  rocked  back 
again  sidewise.  Never  having  been  on  an  island 
before,  the  King's  Envoy  might  have  thought  that 


"Sbort  Sijes."    V 

the  land  was  really  afloat  if  he  had  not  seen 
that  the  wine  in  the  silver  cup  which  the  Burgess 
was  presenting  to  him  was  swinging  around  like 
everything  else  without  spilling  a  drop. 

Things  began  to  settle  a  little  after  the 
Envoy  had  drunk  the  wine,  and  when  he  had 
found  that  there  was  actually  a  carriage  to  take 
him  to  the  Town  Hall,  he  brightened  up  won 
derfully.  He  was  much  pleased  to  see  also  that 
the  Town  Hall  was  solidly  built  of  brick,  and 
that  it  was  to  a  stone  balcony  that  he  was  led 
to  read  his  proclamation  to  the  people.  Grasp 
ing  the  balustrade  firmly  with  one  hand,  he  read 
to  the  surging  crowd  before  him  —  he  had  heard 
of  surging  crowds  before,  but  now  he  saw  one 
that  really  did  surge  —  the  message  of  his  Im 
perial  Master.  The  proclamation  was  exceed 
ingly  brief,  except  for  the  recital  of  the  titles  of 
the  P_^mperor.  The  body  of  the  document  ran 
as  follows: 

"  I  announce  to  my  faithful,  loyal  and  de 
voted  subjects  of  the  honorable  principality  of 
Ausserland,  that  hereafter,  by  my  favor  and 
pleasure,  the  use  of  the  Third  Figure  in  the 
Cotillion  is  graciously  granted  to  them  without 
further  restriction.  Done,  under  my  hand  and 
seal,  this  first  day  of  July,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  eighteen  hundred  and  ninety-two." 

That  was  all.  The  people  listened  atten 
tively  and  cheered  enthusiastically.  Then  the 
Envoy  handed  the  proclamation  and  his  creden 
tials  to  the  Head  Burgess,  with  a  bow  and  a 
flourish,  and  signified  his  intention  of  returning 
at  once  by  the  way  he  had  come.  Nor  could 
any  entreaties  prevail  upon  him  even  to  stay  to 


the  banquet  already  spread.  He  told  the  Bur 
gesses,  with  many  compliments  and  assurances 
of  his  lofty  esteem,  that  he  had  another  princi 
pality  to  notify  before  six  o'clock  the  next  morn 
ing,  and  that  the  business  of  his  Imperial  Mas 
ter  admitted  of  not  so  much  as  a  moment's 
delay.  The  truth  of  the  matter,  however,  he 
kept  to  himself.  For  one  thing,  he  could  not 
have  gazed  upon  food  without  disastrous  results. 
For  another,  he  was  experiencing  an  emotion 
which  in  any  other  than  a  military  breast  would 
have  been  fear.  He  had  but  one  wish  in  the 
world,  and  that  was  to  get  back  to  the  main 
land,  the  breeze  being  in  his  favor  going  back 
and  promising  a  quicker  passage.  Indeed  it  was 
with  difficulty  that  he  repressed  a  mad  desire  to 
ask  the  Head  Burgess  whether  the  island  ever 
fetched  loose  and  floated  further  out,  or  sank  to 
the  bottom.  However,  he  maintained  his  dig- 


•^    /Bbore  "Sbort  Stjes."    ^ 

nity  to  the  last;  and,  a  half  an  hour  later,  as 
the  people  watched  the  fishing  -  smack  with  the 
Imperial  ensign  sail  forth  upon  the  dancing  sea, 
bearing  the  Herr  Graf  Maximilian  von  Bummel- 
berg,  of  Schloss  Bummelfels  in  the  Scrfwarzwald, 
they  all  agreed  that,  for  a  short  visit,  he  made  a 
very  satisfactory  King's  Envoy. 

But  they  could  banquet  very  well  without 
assistance  from  Envoys  or  anybody,  and  they  sat 
them  down  in  the  great  hall  of  the  Rathhaus,  and 
they  fell  upon  the  smoked  herring  and  the  fresh 
herring,  and  the  pickled  herring,  and  the  smoked 
goose-breast  and  the  potato  salad,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  good  things,  and  they  drank  great  tankards 
of  home-made  beer,  and  great  flagons  of  imported 
Rhenish  wine;  and,  after  that,  they  smoked  long 
pipes  and  chatted  contentedly,  mainly  about  the 
herring-market. 

They  had  reached  this  stage  in  the  proceed 
ings  before  it  occurred  to  any  one  in  the  com 
pany  to  broach  the  comparatively  uninteresting 
subject  of  the  Imperial  proclamation,  and  then 
somebody  said  in  a  casual  way  that  he  did  not 
think  he  had  quite  caught  the  sense  of  it.  Soon 
it  appeared  that  no  one  else  had.  The  Head 
Burgess  was  puzzled.  "  I  have  just  copied  it  into 
the  Town  Archives,"  he  said;  "but,  upon  my  soul, 
I  never  thought  of  considering  the  sense  of  it." 
So  the  document  was  taken  from  the  ponderous 
safe  of  the  Rathhaus  and  passed  around  among 
the  goodly  company,  each  one  of  whom  read  it 
slowly  through  and  smoked  solemnly  over  it. 
The  Head  Burgess  was  appealed  to  for  the  mean 
ing  of  the  word  "  cotillion."  He  had  to  confess 
that  he  did  not  exactly  know.  He  believed, 


however,  that  it  was  a  custom-house  word,  and 
had  reference  to  the  gauging  of  proof  spirits. 
Then  the  Doctor  was  asked  his  opinion.  He 
said,  somewhat  uneasily,  that  he  thought  it  was 
one  of  the  new  chemicals  recently  derived  from 
coal  tar;  but,  with  all  due  respect  to  his  Imperial 
Majesty,  he  took  no  stock  in  such  new-fangled 
nonsense,  and  castor-oil  would  be  good  enough 
for  his  patients  while  he  lived.  The  School- 
Master  would  know,  some  one  suggested;  but 
the  School- Master  had  gone  home  early,  being 
in  expectation  of  an  addition  to  his  family.  The 
Dominie  took  a  hand  in  the  discussion,  and  call 
ing  attention  to  the  word  figure,  opined  that  it 
belonged  to  some  branch  of  astronomy  hitherto 
under  the  ban  of  the  universities  on  account  of  its 
tendency  to  unsettle  the  minds  of  young  men  and 
promote  the  growth  of  infidelity.  He  lamented 
the  atheistical  tendency  of  modern  times,  and 
shook  his  head  gravely  as  he  said  he  hoped  that 
the  young  Emperor  would  not  be  led  astray. 


"Sbort  Sijes."    ^ 

Many  suggestions  were  made ;  so  many,  in 
deed,  that,  it  being  plainly  impossible  to  arrive  at 
a  consensus  of  opinion,  the  subject  was  dropped; 
and,  wrapped  in  great  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke, 
the  conversation  made  its  way  back  to  the  herring 
fisheries. 

But,  later  in  the  night,  as  the  Head  Burgess 
and  the  Doctor  strolled  slowly  homeward,  smok 
ing  their  pipes  in  the  calm  moonlight,  the  ques 
tion  came  up  again,  and  they  were  earnestly  dis 
cussing  it  in  deep,  sonorous  tones  when  they 
came  in  front  of  the  house  of  the  School- Master, 
and  saw  by  a  light  in  the  window  of  his  study 
that  he  was  still  waiting  the  pleasure  of  Mrs. 
School- Master.  They  rapped  with  their  pipes  on 
the  door-post,  giving  the  signal  that  had  often 
called  their  old  friend  forth  to  late  card-parties  at 
the  tavern,  and  in  a  couple  of  minutes  —  for  no 
one  hurries  in  Ausserland  —  he  appeared  at  the 
door  in  his  old  green  dressing-gown  and  with  his 
long-stemmed  pipe  in  his  mouth. 

Now,  the  School-Master  was  not  only  a 
man  of  profound  learning,  but  a  man  of  rapid 
mental  processes.  He  had  heard  from  his  open 
window  the  discussion  as  his  two  friends  slowly 
came  down  the  street;  and,  in  point  of  fact,  his 
professional  instinct  had  led  him  to  note  the 
mystic  word  when  it  dropped  from  the  Envoy's 
lips.  This  it  was,  rather  than  domestic  expecta 
tions,  that  had  kept  him  awake  so  late.  And  in 
the  time  that  elapsed  between  the  arrival  of  his 
friends  and  his  appearance  at  the  door,  he  had 
prepared  himself  to  meet  the  situation. 

He  listened  solemnly  to  the  question  with 
the  tolerant  interest  of  a  man  of  science,  and  he 
'74 


•^ff-    £be  abirD  jrtflure  in  ftbe  Cotillion.    ^ 

answered  it   without   hesitation,   in   the   imposing 
tone  of  perfect  knowledge. 

"  A  cotillion,"  he  said,  decisively,  "  is  the 
one-billionth  part  of  a  minus  million  in  quater 
nions,  and  is  used  by  surveyors  to  determine  the 


logarithm  of  the  cube  root.  That  is,  its  use  has 
hitherto  been  forbidden  to  the  government  sur 
veyors  on  account  of  the  uncertainty  of  the 
formula.  That,  however,  has  been  finally  deter 
mined  by  Prof.  Lipsius,  of  Munich,  and  here 
after  it  may  be  applied  to  delicate  calculations 
in  determining  the  altitude  of  mountains  too 
lofty  for  ascent.  Gentlemen,  I  should  like  to 
175 


•y-    /Ifcore  "Sbort  Sijes."    ^ 

ask  you  in  to  take  a  night-cap  with  me,  but, 
under  the  circumstances,  you  understand  .... 
Doctor,  I  don't  think  we  shall  need  you  to 
night.  Good-evening,  friends." 

The  Doctor  and  the  Head  Burgess  rumi 
nated  over  this  new  acquisition  to  their  stock 
of  knowledge  as  they  strolled  on  down  the  street. 
At  last  the  latter  broke  the  silence  and  said,  in 
a  tone  in  which  conviction  struggled  with  sleepi 
ness  : 

"  Doctor,  I  have  often  thought  what  a  hard 
life  those  poor  devils  on  the  mainland  must  have 
with  their  impassable  mountains,  and  their  rail 
roads  that  kill  and  mangle  you  if  they  get  a  mil 
lionth  part  of  a  cube  root  out  of  the  way,  and  the 
boundary-lines  they  are  everlastingly  quarreling 
about.  Why,  here  in  Ausserland,  see  how  simple 
it  all  is !  We  never  have  any  trouble  about  our 
boundary-lines.  Where  the  land  stops  the  water 
begins,  and  where  the  land  begins  the  water 
stops ;  and  that  's  all  there  is  to  it ! " 

And  with  these  words,  as  the  last  puff  of 
his  pipe  rose  heavenward,  the  Burgess  dismissed 
the  matter  from  his  mind,  and  the  Emperor's 


^    Cbe  tTbirfc  jfigure  in  tTbe  Cotillion,    -y- 

proclamation  legitimizing  the  Third  Figure  of 
the  Cotillion  vanished  from  his  memory — and 
from  that  of  all  Ausserland  —  passing  into  ob 
livion  with  those  that  had  told  of  Ausserland's 
change  of  nationality,  of  the  conscription  of  her 
exempt  citizens,  and  of  the  death  of  the  great- 
grandmother  of  the  hereditary  Prince. 


177 


"  SAMANTH  A     BOOM-DE-AY." 


"SAMANTHA     BOOM-DE-AY." 


T  was  a  long,  rough,  sunlit  stretch  of  stony 
turnpike  that  climbed  across  the  flanks  of  a 
mountain  range  in  Maine,  and  skirted  a 
great  forest  for  many  miles,  on  its  way  to 
an  upland  farming-country  near  the  Canada 
border. 

As  you  ascended  this  road,  on  your  right 
hand  was  a  continuous  wall  of  dull-hued  ever 
greens,  straggly  pines  and  cedars,  crowded  closely 
and  rising  high  above  a  thick  underbrush.  Be 
hind  this  lay  the  vast,  mysterious,  silent  wilder 
ness.  Here  and  there  the  emergence  of  a  foamy, 
rushing  river,  or  the  entrance  of  a  narrow 
corduroy  road  or  trail,  afforded  a  glimpse  into  its 
depths,  and  then  you  saw  the  slopes  of  hills  and 
valleys,  clad  ever  in  one  smoky,  bluish  veil  of 
fir  and  pine. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  you  could  see 
through  the  roadside  brush,  you  looked  down  the 
mountain  slope  to  the  plains  below,  where  the 
brawling  mountain  streams  quieted  down  into 
pleasant  water-courses;  where  broad  patches  of 
meadow  land  and  wheat  field  spread  out  from 
edges  of  the  woods,  and  where,  far,  far  off,  clusters 
of  farm-houses,  and  further  yet,  towns  and  vil 
lages,  sent  their  smoke  up  above  the  hazy  horizon. 

180 


^r   "Samantba  $oom*fce*aB."    ^ 

It  was  a  road  of  so  much  variety  and  sweep 
of  view,  as  it  kept  its  course  along  the  boundary 
of  the  forest's  dateless  antiquity,  and  yet  in  full 
view  of  the  prosperous  outposts  of  a  well- 
established  civilization,  that  the  most  calloused 
traveler  might  have  been  expected  to  look  about 
him  and  take  an  interest  in  his  surroundings. 
But  the  three  people  who  drove  slowly  up  this 
hill  one  August  afternoon  might  have  been  pass 
ing  through  a  tunnel  for  all  the  attention  they 
paid  to  the  shifting  scene. 

Their  vehicle  was  a  farm  -  wagon ;  a  fine, 
fresh-  painted  Concord  wagon.  The  horses  that 
drew  it  were  large,  sleek,  and  a  little  too  fat.  A 
comfortable  country  prosperity  appeared  in  the 
whole  outfit ;  and,  although  the  raiment  of  the 
three  travelers  was  unfashionably  plain,  they  all 
three  had  an  aspect  of  robust  health  and  physical 
well-being,  which  was  much  at  variance  with 
their  dismal  countenances  —  for  the  middle-aged 
man  who  was  driving  looked  sheepish  and  embar 
rassed;  the  good-looking,  sturdy  young  fellow  by 
his  side  was  clearly  in  a  state  of  frank,  undis 
guised  dejection,  and  the  black-garbed  woman, 
who  sat  behind  in  a  splint-bottomed  chair,  had 
the  extra-hard  granite  expression  of  the  New 
England  woman  who  particularly  disapproves -of 
something ;  whether  that  something  be  the  des 
truction  of  her  life's  best  hopes  or  her  neighbor's 
method  of  making  pie. 

For  mile  after  mile  they  jogged  along  in 
silence.  Occasionally  the  elder  man  would  make 
some  brief  and  commonplace  remark  in  a  tenta 
tive  way,  as  though  to  start  a  conversation.  To 
these  feeble  attempts  the  young  man  made  no 


response  whatever.  The  woman  in  black  some 
times  nodded  and  sometimes  said  "Yes?"  with 
a  rising  inflection,  which  is  a  form  of  torture 
invented  and  much  practiced  in  the  New  Eng 
land  States. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  a  noise 
behind  and  below  them  made  them  all  glance 
round.  The  middle-aged  man  drew  his  horses 
to  one  side;  and,  in  a  cloud  of  dust,  a  big,  old- 
fashioned  stage  of  a  dull-red  color  overtook  them 
and  lumbered  on  its  way,  the  two  drivers  inter 
changing  careless  nods. 

The  woman  did  not  alter  her  rigid  attitude, 
and  kept  her  eyes  cast  down ;  but  the  passing 
of  the  stage  awakened  a  noticeable  interest  in 
the  two  men  on  the  front  seat.  The  elder  gazed 
with  surprise  and  curiosity  at  the  freight  that  the 
top  of  the  stage  -  coach  bore  —  three  or  four 
182 


"Samantba 


traveling  trunks  of  unusual  size,  shape  and  color, 
clamped  with  iron  and  studded  with  heavy  nails. 

"  Be  them  trunks  ?  "  he  inquired,  staring 
open-mouthed  at  the  sight.  "I  never  seen  trunks 
like  them  before." 

Neither  of  his  com 
panions  answered  him; 
but   a    curious    new 
expression      came 
into  the   young 
man's  face.    He 
sat   up   straight 
for      the      first 
time ;     and,    as 
the  wagon  drew 
back    into     the 
narrow  road,   he 
began    to    whistle 
softly  and  melodiously 


When  Samantha  Spaulding  was  left  a  widow 
with  a  little  boy,  she  got,  as  one  of  her  neighbors 
expressed  it,  "  more  politeness  than  pity."  In 
truth,  in  so  far  as.  the  condition  has  any  luck 
about  it,  Samantha  was  lucky  in  her  widowhood. 
She  was  a  young  widow,  and  a  well-to-do  widow. 
Old  man  Spaulding  had  been  a  good  provider 
and  a  good  husband ;  but  he  was  much  older 
than  his  wife,  and  had  not  particularly  engaged 
her  affections.  Now  that  he  was  dead,  after 
some  eighteen  months  of  married  life,  and  had 
left  her  one  of  the  two  best  farms  in  the  county, 
everybody  supposed  that  Mis'  Spaulding  would 
183 


"Short  Sijes." 


marry  Reuben  Pett,  who  owned  the  other  best 
farm,  besides  a  saw-mill  and  a  stage-route.  That 
is,  everybody  thought  so,  except  Samantha  and 
Pett.  They  calmly  kept  on  in  their  individual 
ways,  and  showed  no  inclination  to  join  their 
two  properties,  though  these  throve  and  waxed 
more  and  more  valuable  year  by  year.  They 
were  good  friends,  however.  Reuben  Pett  was 
a  sagacious  counselor,  and  a  prudent  man  of 
affairs ;  and  when  Samantha's  boy  became  old 
enough  to  work,  he  was  apprenticed  to  Mr.  Pett, 
to  the  end  that  he  might  some  day  take  charge 
of  the  saw-mill  business,  which  his  mother  stood 
ready  to  buy. for  him. 

But  the  youthful  Baxter 
Spaulding  had  not  reached  the 
age  of  twenty  when  he  cast 
down  his  mother's  hopes  in 
utter  ruin  by  coming  home 
from  a  business  trip  to  Augusta 
and  announcing  that  he  was 
going  to  marry,  and  that  the 
bride  of  his  choice  was  a  young 
lady  of  the  variety  stage  who 
danced  for  a  living,  her  spe 
cialty  being  known  as  "hitch- 
and-kick." 

Now,  this  may  not  seem,  to  you  who  read 
this,  quite  a  complete,  perfect  •  and  unimprovable 
thing  in  the  way  of  the  abomination  of  deso 
lation;  but  then  you  must  remember  that  you 
were  not  born  and  raised  in  a  far  corner  of  the 
Maine  hills,  and  that  you  probably  have  so 
frequently  seen  play-actoress-women  of  all  sorts 
that  the  mere  idea  of  them  has  ceased  to  give 


^    "Samantba  ;©ooms&e*a8."    ^ 

you  cold  creeps  down  your  back.  And  to 
Samantha  Spaulding  the  whole  theatrical  system, 
from  the  Tragic  Muse  to  the  "  hitch-and-kick 
artiste,"  was  conceived  in  sin  and  born  in  in 
iquity  ;  and  what  her  son  proposed  to  do  was 
to  her  no  whit  better  than  forgery,  arson,  or  any 
other  ungodliness.  To  you  of  a  less  distinctively 
Aroostook  code  of  morals,  I  may  say  that  the 
enchainer  of  young  Spaulding's  heart  was  quite 
as  good  a  little  girl  in  her  morals  and  her  man 
ners  as  you  need  want  to  find  on  the  stage  or 
off  it;  and  "hitch-and-kick"  dancing  was  to  her 
only  a  matter  of  business,  as  serio-comic  singing 
had  been  to  her  mother,  as  playing  Harlequin 
had  been  to  her  father,  and  as  grinning  through 
a  horse-collar  had  been  to  her  grandfather  and 
great-grandfather,  famous  old  English  clowns  in 
their  day,  one  of  whom  had  been  a  partner  of 
Grimaldi.  She  made  her  living,  it  is  true,  by 
traveling  around  the  country  singing  a  song 
called  "Ta-ra-ra  Boom-de-ay,"  which  required  a 
great  deal  of  high-kicking  for  its  just  and  full 
artistic  expression ;  but  then,  it  should  be  re 
membered,  it  was  the  way  she  had  always  made 
her  living,  and  her  mother's  living,  too,  since  the 
old  lady  lost  her  serio-comic  voice.  And  as  her 
mother  had  taught  her  all  she  knew  about  danc 
ing,  and  as  she  and  her  mother  had  hardly  been 
separated  for  an  hour  since  she  was  out  of  her 
cradle,  Little  Betty  Billington  looked  on  her  pro 
fession,  as  you  well  may  imagine,  with  eyes  quite 
different  from  those  with  which  Mrs.  Samantha 
Spaulding  regarded  it.  It  was  a  lop-sided  contest 
that  ensued,  and  that  lasted  for  months.  On  one 
side  were  Baxter  and  his  Betty  and  Betty's  mama 


•^    tf&ore  "Short  Stjes."    ^ 

—  after  that  good  lady  got  over  her  natural 
objections  to  having  her  daughter  marry  "  out 
of  the  profession."  On  the  other  side  was 
Samantha,  determined  enough  to  be  a  match  for 
all  three  of  them.  Mr.  Reuben  Pett  hovered  on 
the  outskirts,  asking  only  peace. 

At  last  he  was  dragged  into  the  fight. 
Baxter  Spaulding  went  to  Bangor,  where  his 
lady's  company  happened  to  be  playing,  with 
the  avowed  intention  of  wedding  Betty  out  of 
hand.  When  his  mother  found  it  out,  she  took 
Reuben  Pett  and  her  boy's  apprenticeship  -  in 
denture  to  Bangor  with  her,  caught  the  youngster 
ere  the  deed  was  done,  and,  having  the  majesty 
of  the  law  behind  her,  she  was  taking  her  help 
less  captive  home  on  this  particular  August 
afternoon.  He  was  on  the  front  seat  of  the 
wagon,  Samantha  was  on  the  splint  -  bottomed 
chair,  and  Reuben  Pett  was  driving. 


It  was  a  two-days'  drive  from  the  railroad 
station  at  Byram's  Pond  around  the  spur  of  the 
mountain  to  their  home.  The  bi-weekly  stage 
did  it  in  a  day;  but  it  was  unwonted  traveling 
for  Mr.  Pett's  easy-going  team.  Therefore,  the 
three  travelers  put  up  at  Canada  Jake's  camp ; 
so  called,  though  it  was  only  on  the  edge  of 
the  wilderness,  because  it  was  what  Maine  people 
generally  mean  when  they  talk  of  a  "camp"  — 
a  large  shanty  of  rough,  unpainted  planks,  with 
a  kitchen  and  eating-room  below,  and  rudely 
partitioned  sleeping -rooms  in  the  upper  story. 
It  stood  by  the  roadside,  and  served  the  purpose 
of  an  inn. 

iS6 


•y-    "Samantba  JBoom*C»e*aE."   ^ 

Canada  Jake  was  lounging  in  the  doorway 
as  they  came  up,  squat,  bullet-headed  and  bead- 
eyed;  a  very  ordinary  specimen  of  mean  French 
Canadian.  He  welcomed  them  in  as  if  he  were 
conferring  a  favor  upon  them,  fed  them  upon 
black,  fried  meat  and  soggy,  boiled  potatos, 
and  later  on  bestowed  them  in  three  wretched 
enclosures  overhead. 

He  himself  staid  awake  until  the  sound  of 
two  bass  and  one  treble  snore  penetrated  the 
thin  partition  planks ;  and  then  he  stole  softly 
up  the  ladder  that  served  for  stairway,  and 
slipped  into  the  moonlit  little  room  where  Baxter 
Spaulding  was  lying  on  a  cot -bed  six  inches 
too  short  for  him.  Putting  his  finger  upon  his 
lips,  he  whispered  to  the  wakeful  youth : 

"Sh-h-h-h-h-h!      You  got    you'  boots    on?" 

"No,"  said  Baxter  softly. 

"  Come  wiz  me  and  don'  make  no  noise ! " 

And  the  next  thing  that  Baxter  Spaulding 
knew,  he  was  outside  of  the  house,  behind  the 
wood-pile,  holding  a  slight  but  charming  figure 
in  his  arms,  and  saying : 

"Why,  Betty!  why,  Betty!"  in  a  dazed 
sort  of  way,  while  a  fat  and  motherly  lady 
near  by  stood  shaking  with  silent  sobs,  like  a 
jelly-fish  convulsed  with  sympathy  and  affection. 

"We  'eaded  you  off  in  the  stage-coach!" 
was  all  she  said. 


The    next    morning    Mr.    Reuben    Pett    was 
called  out  of  the  land  of  dreams   by  a  familiar 
feminine  voice  from  the  next  room. 
187 


' 


"Reuben  Pett !  "  it  said;  "where  is  Baxter?" 

"Baxter!"  yelled  Mr.  Pett;  "your  ma 
wants  yer!  " 

But  Baxter  came  not.  His  room  was 
empty.  Mr.  Pett  descended  and  found  his  host 
out  by  the  wood-pile,  splitting  kindling.  Canada 
Jake  had  seen  nothing  whatever  of  the  young 
man.  He  opined  that  the  youth  most  'ave  got 
up  airlee,  go  feeshin'. 

Reuben  Pett  went  back  and  reported  to 
Samantha  Spaulding  through  the  door.  Sa- 
mantha's  voice  came  back  to  him  as  a  voice 
from  the  bottom  sub-cellar  of  abysmal  gloom. 

"Reuben,"  she  said;  "them  women  have 
been  here !  " 

"Why,  Samantha!"  he  said;  "it  ain't 
possible !  " 

"I  heard  them  last  night,"  returned  Sa 
mantha,  in  tones  of  conviction.  "  I  know, 
now.  I  did.  I  thought  then  I  was  dreamin'." 
188 


•%f    "Samantba 

"  Most  likely  you  was,  too ! "  said  Mr.  Pett, 
encouragingly. 

"Well,  I  wa'n't!"  rejoined  Mrs.  Spaulding, 
with  a  suddenness  and  an  acerbity  that  made  her 
listener  jump.  "  They  've  stole  my  clothes /" 

"Whatever  do  you  mean,  Samantha  ?"  roared 
Reuben  Pett. 

"I  mean,"  said  Mrs.  Spaulding,  in  a  tone 
that  left  no  doubt  whatever  that  what  she  did 
mean  she  meant  very  hard;  "I  mean  that  that 
hussy  has  been  here  in  the  night,  and  has  took 
every  stitch  and  string  of  my  clothing,  and  ain't 
left  me  so  much  as  a  button-hole,  except  —  ex 
cept  —  except  — " 

"Except  what?"  demanded  Reuben,  in 
stark  amazement. 

"  Except  that  there  idolatrous  flounced  frock 
the  shameless  critter  doos  her  stage-dancing  in ! " 

Mr.  Pett  might,  perhaps,  have  offered  appro 
priate  condolences  on  this  bereavement  had  not 
a  thought  struck  him  which  made  him  scramble 
down  the  ladder  again  and  hasten  to  the  wood 
shed,  where  he  had  put  up  his  team  the  night 
before.  The  team  was  gone — the  fat  horses  and 
fresh  painted  wagon,  and  the  tracks  led  back 
down  the  road  up  which  they  had  ridden  the  day 
before. 

Once  more  Mr.  Pett  climbed  the  ladder; 
but  when  he  announced  his  loss  he  was  met,  to 
his  astonishment,  with  severity  instead  of  with 
sympathy. 

"I    don't     care,    Reuben     Pett,"    Samantha 

spoke   through    the   door ;    "  if   you  've    lost    ten 

horses  and  nineteen  wagons.     You  got  to  hitch 

some  kind  of  a  critter  to  suthin\  for  we  're  goin' 

189 


/Jfcore  "Sbort  Sixes." 


to  ketch  them  people  to-day  or  my  name  's  not 
Samantha  Spaulding." 

"But  Law  Sakes  Alive,  Samantha!"  expos 
tulated  Mr.  Pett ;  "  you  ain't  goin'  to  wear  no 
circus  clothes,  be  ye  ?  " 

"You   go  hunt  a  team,   Mr.  Pett,"  returned 
his  companion,  tartly ;   I  know  my  own  business." 
Mr.  Pett  remonstrated.   He  point 
ed  out  that  there  was  neither 
horse    nor    vehicle   to  be 
had  in  the  neighbor 
hood,   and    that    pur 
suit     was    practically 
hopeless    in    view    of 
the    start    which    the 
runaways    had.       But 
Mrs.    Spaulding     was 
obdurate  with  an  ob 
duracy  that  made  the 
heart  of  Reuben  Pett 
creep  into   his  boots. 
After  ten   minutes   of 
vain     combating,    he 
saw,   beyond  a  doubt, 
that  the  chase  would 
have  to  continue  even 
if  it  were  to  be  carried 
on  astraddle  a  pair  of  confis 
cated  cows.      Having  learned  that 
much,  he  went  drearily  down  again  to  discuss  the 
situation  with  Canada  Pete.    Canada  Pete  was  in 
disposed   to   be   of  the  slightest  assistance,  until 
Mr.    Pett   reminded    him   of  the   danger   of   the 
law    in    which    he    stands   who   aids   a   runaway 
apprentice   in   his   flight.       After  that,   the   sulky 


Canadian  awoke  to  a  new  and  anxious  interest; 
and,  before  long,  he  remembered  that  a  lumberer 
who  lived  "a  piece"  up  the  road  had  a  bit  of 
meadow  -  land  reclaimed  from  the  forest,  and 
sometimes  kept  an  old  horse  in  it.  It  was  a 
horse,  however,  that  had  always  positively  refused 
to  go  under  saddle,  so  that  a  new  complication 
barred  the  way,  until  suddenly  the  swarthy  face 
of  the  habitant  lit  up  with  a  joyful,  white-toothed 
grin. 

"My  old  caleche  zat  I  bring  from  Canada! 
I  let  you  have  her,  hey?  You  come  wiz  me!" 

And  Canada  Pete  led  the  way  through  the 
underbrush  to  a  bit  of  a  clearing  near  his  house, 
where  were  accumulated  many  years'  deposits 
of  household  rubbish;  and  here,  in  a  desert  of 
tin-cans  and  broken  bottles  and  crockery,  stood 
the  oldest  of  all  old  calashes. 

There  are  calashes  and  calashes,  but  the 
calash  or  caleche  of  Canada  is  practically  of  one 
type.  It  is  a  high-hung,  tilting  chaise,  with  a 
commodious  back  seat  and  a  capacious  hood, 
and  with  an  absurd,  narrow,  cushioned  bar  in 
front  for  the  driver  to  sit  on.  It  is  a  startling- 
looking  vehicle  in  its  mildest  form,  and  when  you 
gaze  upon  a  calash  for  the  first  time  you  will 
probably  wonder  whether,  if  a  stray  boy  should 
catch  on  behind,  the  shafts  would  not  fly  up 
into  the  air,  bearing  the  horse  between  them. 
Canada  Pete's  calash  had  evidently  stood  long 
a  monument  of  decay,  yet  being  of  sturdy  and 
simple  construction,  it  showed  distinct  signs  of 
life  when  Pete  seized  its  curved  shafts  and  ran 
it  backward  and  forward  to  prove  that  the  wheels 
could  still  revolve  and  the  great  hood  still  nod 


and  sway  like  a  real  calash  in  commission.  It 
was  ragged,  it  was  rusty,  it  was  water-soaked  and 
weather-beaten,  blistered  and  stained;  but  it 
hung  together,  and  bobbed  along  behind  Canada 
Pete,  lurching  and  rickety,  but  still  a  vehicle,  and 
entitled  to  rank  as  such. 

The  calash  was  taken  into  Pete's  back-yard ; 
and  then,  after  a  brief  and  energetic  campaign, 
Pete  secured  the  horse,  which  was  a  very  good 
match  for  the  calash.  He  was  an  old  horse,  and 
he  had  the  spring-halt.  He  held  his  long  ewe- 
neck  to  one  side,  being  blind  in  one  eye ;  and 
this  gave  him  the  coquettish  appearance  of  a 
mincing  old  maid.  A  little  polka  step,  which  he 
affected  with  his  fore-feet,  served  to  carry  out 
this  idea. 

Also,  he  had  been  feeding  on  grass  for  a 
whole  Summer,  and  his  spirits  were  those  of  the 
young  lambkin  that  gambols  in  the  mead.  He 
was  happy,  and  he  wanted  to  make  others  happy, 
although  he  did  not  seem  always  to  know  the 

IQ2 


•^    "Samantba 

right  way  to  go  about  it.  When  Mr.  Pett  and 
Canada  Pete  had  got  this  animal  harnessed  up 
with  odds  and  ends  of  rope  and  leather,  they  sat 
down  and  wiped  their  brows.  Then  Mr.  Pett 
started  off  to  notify  Mrs.  Samantha  Spaulding. 

Mr.  Pett  was  a  man  unused  to  feminine 
society,  except  such  as  he  had  grown  up 
with  from  early  childhood,  and  he  was  of  a 
naturally  modest,  even  bashful  disposition.  It 
is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  he  was  startled 
when,  on  re-entering  the  living-room  of  Canada 
Pete's  camp,  he  found  himself  face  to  face  with  a 
strange  lady,  and  a  lady,  at  that,  of  a  strangeness 
that  he  had  never  conceived  of  before.  She 
wore  upon  her  head  a  preposterously  tall  bonnet, 
or  at  least  a  towering  structure  that  seemed  to  be 
intended  to  serve  the  purpose  of  a  bonnet.  It 
reminded  him  —  except  for  its  shininess  and 
newness  —  of  the  hood  of  the  calash ;  indeed,  it 
may  have  suggested  itself  vaguely  to  his  memory 
that  his  grandmother  had  worn  a  piece  of  head 
gear  something  similar,  though  not  so  shapely, 
which  in  very  truth  was  nicknamed  a  "calash" 
from  this  obvious  resemblance.  The  lady's  shape 
ly  and  generously  feminine  figure  was  closely 
drawn  into  a  waist  of  shining  black  satin,  cut 
down  in  a  V  on  the  neck,  before  and  behind,  and 
ornamented  with  very  large  sleeves  of  a  strange 
pattern.  But  her  skirts  —  for  they  were  vo 
luminous  beyond  numeration  —  were  the  wonder 
of  her  attire.  Within  fold  after  fold  they  swathed 
a  foamy  mystery  of  innumerable  gauzy  white 
underpinnings.  As  Mr.  Pett's  abashed  eye  trav 
eled  down  this  marvel  of  costume  it  landed  upon 
a  pair  of  black  stockings,  the  feet  of  which 
193 


^    toore  "Sbort  Stjes."    V 

appeared  to  be  balanced  somewhat  uncertainly  in 
black  satin  slippers  with  queer  high  heels. 

"Reuben  Pett,"  said  the  lady  suddenly  and 
and  with  decision,  "don't  you  say  nothing!  If 
you  knew  how  them  shoes  was  pinching  me, 
you  'd  know  what  I  was  goin'  through." 

Mr.  Pett  had  to  lean  up  against  the  door 
post  before  recovering  himself. 

"Why,  Samantha!"  he  said  at  last;  "seems 
to  me  like  you  had  gone  through  more  or  less." 

Here  Mrs.  Spaulding  reached  out  in  an 
irritation  that  carried  her  beyond  all  speech,  and 
boxed  Mr.  Pett's  ears.  Then  she  drew  back, 
startled  at  her  own  act,  but  even  more  surprised 
at  Mr.  Pett's  reception  of  it.  He  was  neither 
surprised  nor  disconcerted.  He  leaned  back 
against  the  door-post  and  gazed  on  unperturbed. 

"My!"  he  said;  "Samantha,  be  them  that 
play-actresses'  clo'es  ?  " 

Mrs.  Spaulding  nodded  grimly. 

"  Well,  all  I  've  got  to  say,  Samantha," 
remarked  Reuben  Pett,  as  he  straightened  him 
self  up  and  started  out  to  bring  their  chariot  to 
the  door;  "all  I  've  got  to  say,  and  all  I  want  to 
say,  is  that  she  must  be  a  mighty  fine  figure  of  a 
woman,  and  that  you  're  busting  her  seams." 

Down  the  old  dusty  road  the  old  calash 
jiggled  and  juggled,  "weaving"  most  of  the  way 
in  easy  tacks  down  the  sharp  declivities.  On  the 
front  seat  —  or,  rather,  on  the  upholstered  bar  — 
sat  Reuben  Pett,  squirming  uncomfortably,  and 
every  now  and  then  trying  to  sit  side-saddle 
fashion  for  the  sake  of  easier  converse  with  his 
fair  passenger.  Mrs.  Spaulding  occupied  the 
back  seat,  lifted  high  above  her  driver  by  the  tilt 
194 


of  the  curious  vehicle,  which  also  served  to  make 
the  white  foundation  of  her  costume  particularly 
visible,  so  that  there  were  certain  jolting  mo 
ments  when  she  suggested  a  black-robed  Venus 
rising  from  a  snowy  foam-crest.  At  such  mo 
ments  Mr.  Pett  lost  control  of  his  horse  to  such 
an  extent  that  the  animal  actually  danced  and 
fairly  turned  his  long  neck  around  as  though  it 
were  set  on  a  pivot.  When  such  a  crisis  was 
reached,  Mrs.  Spaulding  would  utter  a  shrill  and 
startling  "hi!"  which  would  cause  the  horse  to 


^    rtbore  "Short  Sijee."    ^ 

stop  suddenly,  hurling  Mr.  Pett  forward  with 
such  force  that  he  would  have  to  grab  his  narrow 
perch  to  save  his  neck,  and  for  the  next  hundred 
yards  or  so  of  descent  his  attention  would  be 
wholly  concentrated  upon  his  duties  as  driver 
—  for  the  horse  insisted  upon  waltzing  at  the 
slightest  shock  to  his  nerves. 

Mr.  Pett's  tendency  to  turn  around  and 
stare  should  not  be  laid  up  against  him.  For 
twenty  years  he  had  seen  his  neighbor,  Mrs. 
Samantha  Spaulding,  once,  at  least  ;  perhaps 
twice  or  thrice;  mayhap  even  six  or  seven  times 
a  week;  and  yet,  on  this  occasion,  he  had  fair 
excuse  for  looking  over  his  shoulder  now  and 
then  to  assure  himself  that  the  fair  passenger  at 
whose  feet  he  —  literally  —  sat,  was  indeed  that 
very  Samantha  of  his  twenty  years'  knowledge. 
How  was  he,  who  was  only  a  man,  and  no  ladies' 
man  at  that,  to  understand  that  the  local  dress 
maker  and  the  local  habit  of  wearing  wrinkly 
black  alpaca  and  bombazine  were  to  blame  for 
his  never  having  known  that  his  next  door  neigh 
bor  had  a  superb  bust  and  a  gracious  waist  ? 
How  was  he  to  know  that  the  blindness  of  his 
own  eyes  was  alone  accountable  for  his  ignorance 
of  the  whiteness  of  her  teeth,  and  the  shapeliness 
of  the  arms  that  peeped  from  the  big,  old-fash 
ioned  sleeves?  Samantha's  especial  care  upon 
her  farm  was  her  well-appointed  dairy,  and  it  is 
well  known  that  to  some  women  work  in  the 
spring-house  imparts  a  delicate  creaminess  of 
complexion ;  but  he  was  no  close  observer,  and 
how  was  he  to  know  that  that  was  the  rea 
son  why  the  little  V  in  the  front  of  Samantha's 
black  satin  bodice  melted  so  softly  into  the  fresh 
196 


bright  tint  of  her  neck  and  chin  ?  How,  indeed, 
was  a  man  who  had  no  better  opportunities  than 
Reuben  Pett  had  enjoyed,  to  understand  that  the 
pretty  skirt-dancer  dress,  a  dainty,  fanciful  trav 
esty  of  an  old-time  fashion,  had  only  revealed 
and  not  created  an  attractive  and  charming 
woman  in  his  life-long  friend  and  neighbor? 

Samantha  was  not  thinking  in  the  least  of 
herself.  She  had  accepted  her  costume  as  some 
thing  which  she  had  no  choice  but  to  assume 
in  the  exercise  of  an  imperative  duty.  She 
wore  it  for  conscience  sake  only,  just  as  any 
other  New  England  martyr  to  her  New  Eng 
land  convictions  of  right  might  have  worn  a 
mealsack  or  a  suit  of  armor  had  circumstances 
imposed  such  a  necessity. 

But  when  Reuben  Pett  had  looked  around 
three  or  four  times,  she  grasped  her  skirts  in 
both  hands  and  pushed  them  angrily  down  to 
797 


V   dfcore  "Sbort  Sijeg."   t^ 

their  utmost  length.  Then,  with  a  true  woman's 
dislike  of  outraging  pretty  dress  material,  she 
made  a  furtive  experiment  or  two  to  see  if 
her  skirts  would  not  answer  all  the  purposes 
of  modesty  without  hanging  wrong.  Perhaps 
she  had  a  natural  talent  that  way;  at  any 
rate,  she  found  that  they  would. 

"  Samantha,"  said  Reuben  Pett,  over  his 
shoulder,  "what  under  the  sun  sense  be  there  in 
chasin'  them  two  young  fools  up?  If  they 
want  to  marry,  why  not  let  'em  marry  ?  It  's 
natural  for  'em  to  want  to,  and  it  's  agin  nature 
to  stop  'em.  May  be  it  would  n't  be  sech 
a  bad  marriage,  after  all.  Now  you  look  at 
it  in  the  light  of  conscience — " 

"  You  're  a  nice  hand  to  be  advocating 
marriage,  Reuben  Pett,"  said  Mrs.  Spaulding; 
"  you  jest  hurry  up  that  horse  and  I  '11  look 
out  for  the  light  of  conscience." 

Mr.  Pett  chirruped  to  the  capering  ewe- 
neck,  and  they  jolted  downward  in  silence  for 
a  half  a  mile.  Then  he  said  suddenly,  as  if 
emerging  from  a  cloud  of  reflection : 

"  I  ain't  never  said  nothing  agin  marriage !  " 


Noon-time  came,  and  the  hot  August  sun 
poured  down  upon  them,  until  the  old  calash 
felt,  as  Mr.  Pett  remarked,  like  a  chariot  of 
fire.  This  observation  was  evolved  in  a  hu 
morous  way  to  slacken  the  tension  of  a  situa 
tion  which  was  becoming  distinctly  unpleasant. 
Moved  by  a  spirit  of  genial  and  broadly  human 
benevolence  which  was  somewhat  unnatural  to 
198 


•^    "Samantba  aSoom*Oe*aB."    ^ 

him,  Mr.  Pett  had  insisted  upon  pleading  the 
cause  of  the  youthful  runaways  with  an  in 
sistence  that  was  at  once  indiscreet  and  futile. 
In  the  end  his  companion  had  ordered  him  to 
hold  his  tongue,  an  injunction  he  was  quite 
incapable  of  obeying.  After  a  series  of  fail 
ures  in  the  way  of  conversational  starters,  he 
finally  scored  a  success  by  suggesting  that  they 
should  pause  and  partake  of  the  meagre  re 
fection  which  Canada  Pete  had  furnished  them  — 
.a  modest  repast  of  doughnuts,  apples  and  store- 
pie.  This  they  ate  at  the  first  creek  where 
they  found  a  convenient  place  to  water  the 
horse. 

When  they  resumed  their  journey,  they 
found  that  they  were  all  refreshed  and  in 
brighter  mood.  Even  the  horse  was  intoxi 
cated  by  the  water  and  that  form  of  verdure 
which  may  pass  for  grass  on  the  margin  of 
a  mountain  highway  in  Maine. 

This  change  of  feeling  was  also  percepti 
ble  in  the  manner  and  bearing  of  the  human 
beings  who  made  up  the  cavalcade.  Samantha 
adjusted  her  furbelows  with  unconscious  deft 
ness  and  daintiness,  while  she  gazed  before 
her  into  the  bright  blue  heaven;  and,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  sucked  her  teeth.  Reuben  frankly 
flung  one  leg  over  the  end  of  his  seat,  and 
conversed  easily  as  he  drove  along,  poised  like 
a  boy  who  rides  a  bare-back  horse  to  water. 
After  awhile  he  even  felt  emboldened  to  re 
sume  the  forbidden  theme  of  conversation. 

"  Nature  is  nature,  Samantha,"  he  said. 

"  'T  is  in  some  folks,"  responded  Samantha, 
dryly;  "there  's  others  seems  to  be  able  to 

IQQ 


^   flbore  "Sbort  Sixes."    ^ 

git  along  without  it."     And  Reuben  turned  this 

speech  over  in  his  mind  for  a  good  ten  minutes. 

Then,   just   as   he    was    evidently    about    to 

say  something,    he  glanced   up  and  saw  a  sight 

which    changed    the    current    of    his    reflections. 

It   was    only    a    cloud    in    the    heavens,    but    it 

evidently  awakened  a  new  idea  in  his  mind. 

"  Samantha,"    he    said,     in.   a    tone    of   voice 


that  seemed  inappropriately  cheerful;  "they  's 
goin'  to  be  a  thunder  storm." 

"Fiddlesticks!"  said   Mrs.   Spaulding. 

"Certain,"  asseverated  Mr.  Pett;  "there 
she  is  a-comin  up,  right  agin  the  wind." 

A  thunder  storm  on  the  edge  of  a  Maine 
forest  is  not  wholly  a  joke.  It  sometimes  has 
a  way  of  playing  with  the  forest  trees  much 
as  a  table  d'hote  diner  plays  with  the  wooden 
tooth-picks.  Samantha's  protests,  when  Mr.  Pett 


^   "Samantfca  38oom=De*aB."    V 

stated  that  he  was  going  to  get  under  the 
cover  of  an  abandoned  saw-mill  which  stood 
by  the  roadside  a  little  way  ahead  of  them, 
were  more  a  matter  of  form  than  anything 
else.  But  still,  when  they  reached  the .  rough 
shed  of  unpainted  and  weather-beaten  boards, 
and  Mr.  Pett,  in  turning  in  gave  the  vehicle 
a  sudden  twist  that  broke  the  shaft,  her  anger 
at  the  delay  thus  rendered  necessary  was  beyond 
her  control. 

"  1  declare  to  goodness,  Reuben  Pett,"  she 
cried;  "if  you  ain't  the  awkwardest !  Anybody 
'd  a'most  think  you  'd  done  that  a  purpose." 

"  Oh,  no,  Samantha ! "  said  Reuben  Pett, 
pleasantly;  "it  ain't  right  to  talk  like  that. 
This  here  machine  's  dreadful  old.  Why,  Sa 
mantha,  we  'd  ought  to  sympathize  with  it  — 
you  and  me!  " 

"  Speak  for  yourself,  Mr.  Pett,"  said  Sa 
mantha.  "  I  ain't  so  dreadful  old,  whatever  you 
may  be." 

At  the  moment  Mr.  Pett  made  no  rejoinder 
to  this.  He  unshipped  the  merry  horse,  and 
tied  him  to  a  post  under  the  old  saw-mill,  and 
then  he  pulled  the  calash  up  the  runway  into 
the  first  story,  and  patiently  set  about  the  diffi 
cult  task  of  mending  the  broken  shaft,  while 
Samantha,  looking  out  through  the  broad,  open 
doorway,  watched  the  fierce  Summer  storm  de 
scend  upon  the  land ;  and  she  tapped  her  im 
patient  foot  until  it  almost  burst  its  too  narrow 
satin  covering. 

"  No,  Samantha,"  Mr.  Pett  said,  at  last, 
intently  at  work  upon  his  splicing ;  "  you  ain't 
50  dreadful  old,  for  a  fact;  but  I  Ve  knowed  you 


Sbort  Sfjes." 


when  you  was  a  dreadful  sight  younger.  I  've 
knowed  you,"  he  continued,  reflectively,  "  when 
you  was  the  spryest  girl  in  ten  miles  round  — 
when  you  could  dance  as  lively  as  that  young 
lady  whose  clo'es  you  're  a-wearin'." 

"  Don't  you  dare  to  talk  to  me  about  that 
jade!"  said  Mrs.  Spaulding,  snappishly. 

"  Why,  no  !  certainly  not  !  "  said  Mr.  Pett  ; 
"  I  did  n't  mean  no  comparison.  Only,  as  I 
was  a-sayih',  there  was  a  time,  Samantha,  when 
you  could  dance." 


"And  who  says  I  can't  dance  now?"  de 
manded  Mrs.  Spaulding,  with  anger  in  her  voice. 

"  My !  I  remember  wunst,"  said  Mr.  Pett ; 
and  then  the  sense  of  Samantha's  angry  question 
seemed  to  penetrate  his  wandering  mind. 

"  '  Dance  now  ? '  "  he  repeated.     "  Sho !   Sa- 


•y   "Samantba  3Boom=De*aB."    ^ 

mantha,   you  could   n't    dance  nowadays  if  you 
was  to  try." 

'•'  Who  says  I  could  n't  ? "  asked  Samantha, 
again,  with  a  set  look  developing  around  the 
corners  of  her  mouth. 

"  /  say  you  could  n't,"  replied  Mr.  Pett, 
obtusely.  "  T  ain't  in  nature.  But  there  was  a 
time,  Samantha,  when  you  was  great  on  fancy 
steps." 

"  Think  I  'm  too  old  for  fancy  steps  now, 
do  you  ?  "  She  looked  at  her  tormentor  savagely', 
out  of  the  corners  of  her  eyes. 

"  Well,  not  too  old,  may  be,  Samantha,"  went 
on  Mr.  Pett ;  "  but  may  be  you  ain't  that  limber 
you  was.  I  know  how  it  is.  I  ain't  smart  as 
I  used  to  be,  myself.  Why,  do  you  remember 
that  night  down  at  the  Corners,  when  we  two 
was  the  only  ones  that  could  jump  over  Squire 
Tate's  high  andirons  and  cut  a  pigeon-wing  before 
we  come  down  ?  " 

Mr.  Pett  appeared  to  be  entirely  uncon 
scious  that  Mrs.  Spaulding's  bosom  was  heaving, 
that  her  eyes  were  snapping  angrily,  and  that  her 
foot  was  beating  on  the  floor  in  that  tattoo  with 
which  a  woman  announces  that  she  is  near  an 
end  of  her  patience. 

"  How  high  was  them  andirons?"  she  asked, 
breathlessly. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  answered  Reuben,  in 
differently.  He  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  his  work; 
but  while  he  worked  his  splice  closer  with  his 
right  hand,  with  his  left  he  took  off  his  hat  and 
held  it  out  rather  more  than  two  feet  above 
the  floor. 

"  'Bout    as    high    as   that,   may   be,"   he   said. 
303 


*p    above  "Sbort  Sijes."    ^ 

"Remember  the  tune  we  done  that  to?  Went 
some  sort  of  way  like  this,  did  n't  it  ? "  And 
with  that  remarkable  force  of  talent  which  is  only 
developed  in  country  solitudes,  Mr.  Pett  began  to 
whistle  an  old-time  air,  a  jiggetty,  wiggetty  whirl- 
around  strain  born  of  some  dead  darkey's  sea- 
sawing  fiddle-bow,  with  a  volume  of  sustained 
sound  that  would  have  put  to  shame  anything  the 
saw -mill  could  have  done  for  itself  in  its  buz- 
zingest  days. 

"Whee-ee-ee,  ee-ee,  ee^  ee  ee,  whee,  ee,  ee, 
ee  ee f"  whistled  Mr.  Pett;  and  then,  softly,  and 
as  if  only  the  dim  stirring  of  memory  moved 
him,  he  began  to  call  the  old  figures  of  the  old 
dance. 

"Forward  all!"  he  crooned.  "Turn  part 
ners!  Sashay!  Alleman'  all!  Whee-ee-ee,  ee- 
ee,  ee  ee,  ee  ee  ee,  whee,  ee,  ee,  ee,  ee,  ee  eef" 

And  suddenly,  like  the  tiger  leaping  from 
her  lair,  the  soft  pattering  and  shuffling  of  feet 
behind  him  resolved  itself  into  a  quick,  furious 
rhythmic  beat,  and  Samantha  Spaulding  shot 
high  into  ,the  air,  holding  up  her  skirts  with  both 
hands,  while  her  neat  ankles  crossed  each  other 
in  a  marvelous  complication  of  agility  a  good 
twelve  inches  above  his  outstretched  hat. 

"There!"  she  cried,  as  she  landed  with  a 
flourish  that  combined  skill  and  grace ;  "  there  's 
what  I  done  with  you,  and  much  I  think  of  it ! 
If  you  want  to  see  dancin'  that  is  dancin'  look 
here.  Here  's  what  I  did  with  Ben  Griggs  at 
the  shuckin'  that  same  year ;  and  you  wa'n't 
there,  and  good  reason  why !  " 

And  then  and  there,  while  Reuben  Pett's 
great  rasping  whistle  rang  through  the  old  saw- 
304 


mill,  shrilling  above  the  roar  of  the  storm  outside, 
Mrs.  Samantha  Spaulding  executed  with  lightning 
rapidity  and  with  the  precision  of  perfect  and 
confident  knowledge,  a  dancing -step  which  for 
scientific  complexity  and  daring  originality  had 
been  twenty  years  before  the  surprise,  the  delight, 
the  tingling,  shocking,  tempting  nine-days'-wonder 
of  the  country-side. 

"Whee-ee-ee,  ee-ee,  ee  ee,  ee  ee  ee,  whee, 
ee,  ee  ee,  ee  ee!"  Reuben  Pett's  whistle  died 
away  from  sheer  lack  of  breath  as  Samantha 
came  to  the  end  of  her  dance. 


There  is  nothing  that  hath   a   more   heavy 
and  leaden  cold  than  a  chilled  enthusiasm.   When 
the    storm  was   over,   although   a   laughing  light 
205 


^   flbore  "Sbort  Sijes."    t> 

played  over  the  landscape;  although  diamond 
sparkles  lit  up  the  grateful  white  mist  that  rose 
from  the  refreshed  earth;  although  the  sun  shone 
as  though  he  had  been  expecting  that  thunder 
storm  all  day,  and  was  inexpressibly  glad  that  it 
was  over  and  done  with,  Samantha  leaned  back 
in  her  seat  in  the  calash,  and  nursed  a  cheerless 
bitterness  of  spirit — such  a  bitterness  as  is  known 
only  to  the  New  England  woman  to  whom  has 
come  a  realization  of  the  fact  that  she  has  made 
a  fool  of  herself.  Samantha  Spaulding.  Made  a 
fool  of  herself.  At  her  age.  After  twenty  years 
of  respectable  widowhood.  Her,  of  all  folks. 
And  with  that  old  fool.  Who  'd  be'n  a-settin' 


V    "Samantba 

and  a-settin'  and  a-settin'  all  these  years.  And 
never  said  Boo !  And  now  for  him  to  twist  her 
round  his  finger  like  that.  She  felt  like  —  well, 
she  did  n't  know  how  she  did  feel. 

She  was  so  long  wrapped  up  in  her  own 
thoughts  that  it  was  with  a  start  that  she  awoke 
to  the  fact  that  they  were  making  very  slow  pro 
gress,  and  that  this  was  due  to  the  very  peculiar 
conduct  of  Mr.  Pett.  He  was  making  little  or 
no  effort  to  urge  the  horse  along,  and  the  horse, 
consequently,  having  got  tired  of  wasting  his 
bright  spirits  on  the  empty  air,  was  maundering. 
So  was  Mr.  Pett,  in  another  way.  He  mumbled 
to  himself;  from  time  to  time  he  whistled  scraps 
of  old-fashioned  tunes,  and  occasionally  he  sang 
to  himself  a  brief  catch  —  the  catch  coming  in 
about  the  third  or  fourth  bar. 

"  Look  here,  Reuben  Pett  ! "  demanded 
Samantha,  shrilly ;  "  be  you  going  to  get  to 
Byram's  Pond  to-night  ?  " 

"  I  kin"  replied   Reuben. 

"  Well,  be  you  ? "  Samantha  Spaulding  in 
quired. 

"  I  d'no.  Fact  is,  I  wa'n't  figurin'  on  that 
just  now." 

"  Well,  what  was  you  figurin'  on  ?  "  snapped 
Mrs.  Spaulding. 

"  When  you  's  goin'  to  marry  me,"  Mr.  Pett 
answered  with  perfect  composure.  "  Look  here, 
Samantha !  it  's  this  way :  here  's  twenty  years 
you  Ve  kept  me  waitin'." 

"  Me  kept  you  waitin'  !  Well,  Reuben 
Pett,  if  I  ever  ! " 

"Don't  arguefy,  Samantha;  don't  arguefy," 
remonstrated  Mr.  Pett;  "I  ain't  rakin  up  no 
207 


"Sbort  Sijes."    V 

details.  What  we  've  got  to  deal  with  is  this 
question  as  it  stands  to-day.  Be  you  a-goin'  to 
marry  me  or  be  you  not  ?  And  if  you  be,  when 
be  you?" 

"Reuben  Pett,"  exclaimed  Samantha,  with 
a  showing  of  severity  which  was  very  creditable 
under  the  circumstances;  "ain't  you  ashamed  of 
talk  like  that  between  folks  of  our  age  ?  " 

"  We  ain't  no  age  —  no  age  in  particular, 
Samantha,"  said  Mr.  Pett.  "A  woman  who  can 
cut  a  pigeon-wing  over  a  hat  held  up  higher  than 
any  two  pair  of  andirons  that  I  ever  see  is  young 
enough  for  me,  anyway."  And  he  chuckled  over 
his  successful  duplicity. 

Samantha  blushed  a  red  that  was  none  the 
less  becoming  for  a  tinge  of  russet.  Then  she 
took  a  leaf  out  of  Mr.  Pett's  book. 

"Young  enough  for  you?"  she  repeated. 
"Well,  I  guess  so!  I  wa'n't  thinkin'  of  myself 
when  I  said  old,  Mr.  Pett.  I  was  thinkin'  of 
folks  who  was  gettin'  most  too  old  to  drive  down 
hill  in  a  hurry." 

"Who's  that?"  asked  Reuben. 

"  I  ain't  namin'  any  names,"  said  Samantha ; 
"  but  I  've  knowed  the  time  when  you  was  n't  so 
awful  afraid  of  gettin'  a  spill  off  the  front  seat 
of  a  calash.  Lord !  how  time  does  take  the 
tuck  out  of  some  folks ! "  she  concluded,  address 
ing  vacancy. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  I  da'sn't  drive 
you  down  to  Byram's  Pond  to-night  ? "  Mr.  Pett 
inquired  defiantly. 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Spaulding. 

Mr.  Pett  stuck  a  crooked  forefinger  into  his 
208 


Samantba  $oom*fce=aB." 


lady-love's  face,  and  gazed  at  her  with  such  an 
intensity  that  she  was  obliged  at  last  to  return  his 
penetrating  gaze. 

"If  I  get  you  to  Byram's  Pond  before  the 
train  goes,  will  you  marry  me  the  first  meetin' 
house  we  corne  to  ?  " 

"  I  will," .  said  Mrs.  Spaulding,  after  a  mo 
ment's  hesitation,  well  remembering  what  the 
other  party  to  the  bargain  had  forgotten,  that 
there  was  no  church  in  Byram  Pond,  nor  nearer 
than  forty  miles  down  the  railroad. 

j 

*  * 

In  the  warm  dusk 
of  a  Summer's  evening, 
a  limping,  shackle- 
gaited,  bewildered 
horse,  dragging  a 
calash  in  the  last 
stages  of  ruin, 
brought  two  travel 
ers  into  the  village 
of  Byram's  Pond. 
Far  up  on  the  hills 
there  lingered  yet  the 
clouds  of  dust  that  marked 
where  that  calash  had  come  down  those  hills 
at  a  pace  whereat  no  calash  ever  came  down 
hill  before.  Dust  covered  the  two  travelers  so 
thickly,  that,  although  the  woman's  costume 
was  of  peculiar  and  striking  construction,  its 
eccentricities  were  lost  in  a  dull  and  uniform 
grayness.  .  Her  bonnet,  however,  would  have 
excited  comment.  It  had  apparently  been  of 
209 


Sbort  Sijes." 


remarkable  height;  but  pounding  against  the 
hood  of  the  calash  had  so  knocked  it  out  of 
all  semblance  to  its  original  shape,  that  with 
its  great  wire  hoops  sticking  out  "four  ways 
for  Sunday,"  it  looked  more  like  a  discarded 
crinoline  perched  upon  her  head  than  any 
known  form  of  feminine  bonnet. 

The  calash  slowed  up  as  it  drew  near  the 
town.  Suddenly  it  stopped  short,  and  both 
•the  travelers  gazed  with  startled  interest  at  a 


capacious    white    tent    reared  by   the    roadside. 

From   within    this    tent    came  the    strains    of   a 

straining     melodeon.         Over  the     portal     was 
stretched    a    canvas    sign : 

GOSPEL  TENT  OF  REV.  J.   HANKEY. 

As   the   travelers   stared  with   all  their  eyes, 
they    saw    the    flap    of    the    tent    thrown    back, 


•*je-   "Samantba 

and  fou::  figures  came  out.  There  were  two 
ladies,  a  stout,  middle-aged  lady,  a  shapely, 
buxom  young  lady,  a  tall,  broad  -  shouldered 
young  man,  and  the  fourth  figure  was  un 
mistakably  a  Minister  of  one  of  the  Congrega 
tional  denominations.  The  young  man  and 
the  -wo  ladies  walked  down  the  road  a  little 
way,  and,  entering  a  solid-looking  farm  wagon, 
drove  off  behind  a  pair  of  plump  horses,  in 
the  direction  of  the  railroad  station,  while  the 
minister  waved  them  a  farewell  that  was  also 
a  benediction. 

"  Git  down,  Samantha !  "  said  Reuben  Pett, 
"  and  straighten  out  that  bonnet  of  yours. 
Parson  's  got  another  job  before  prayer-meetin' 
begins." 


MY   DEAR   MRS.    BILLINGTON. 


MY   DEAR   MRS.   BILLINGTON. 


ISS  CARMELITA  BILLINGTON  sat  in 
a  bent-wood  rocking-chair  in  an  upper 
room  of  a  great  hotel  by  the  sea,  and 
cried  for  a  little  space,  and  then  for  a 
little  space  dabbed  at  her  hot  cheeks 
•  and  red  eyes  with  a  handkerchief  wet 
with  cologne;  and  dabbed  and  cried, 
and  dabbed  and  cried,  without  seeming  to  get 
any  "  forwarder."  The  sun  and  the  fresh  breeze 
and  the  smell  of  the  sea  came  in  through  her 
open  windows,  but  she  heeded  them  not.  She 
mopped  herself  with  cologne  till  she  felt  as  if  she 
could  never  again  bear  to  have  that  honest  scent 
near  her  dainty  nose;  but  between  the  mops 
the  tears  trickled  and  trickled  and  trickled;  and 
she  was  dreadfully  afraid  that  inwardly,  into  the 
surprising  great  big  cavity  that  had  suddenly 
found  room  for  itself  in  her  poor  little  heart, 
the  tears  would  trickle,  trickle,  trickle  forever. 
It  was  no  use  telling  herself  she  had  done 
right.  When  you  have  done  right  and  wish  you 
had  n't  had  to  you  can't  help  having  a  profound 
contempt  for  the  right,  The  right  is  respectable, 
of  course,  and  proper  and  commendable  and — 
in  short,  it 's  the  right ;  —  but,  oh !  what  a  nui 
sance  it  is!  You  can't  help  wondering  in  your 
214 


private  mind  why  the  right  is  so  disagreeable 
and  unpleasant  and  unsatisfactory,  and  the  wrong 
so  extremely  nice.  Of  course,  it  was  right  to 
refuse  Jack  Hatterly;  but  why,  why  on  earth 
could  n't  it  just  as  easily  have  been  right  to 
accept  him?  And  the  more  she  thought  about 
it  the  more  she  doubted  whether  it  was  always 
quite  right  to  do  right,  and  whether  it  was  not 
sometimes  entirely  wrong  not  to  do  wrong. 

No ;  it  was  no  use  telling  herself  to  be  a  brave 
girl.  She  was  a  brave  girl  and  she  knew  it. 
In  the  face  of  the  heartless  world  she  could  bear 
herself  as  jauntily  as  if  she  were  heartless,  too; 
but  in  the  privacy  of  her  own  room,  with  Mama 
fast  asleep  on  the  verandah  below,  she  could  not 
see  the  slightest  use  in  humbugging  herself.  She 
was  perfectly  miserable,  and  the  rest  of  her  reflec- 


•^    flbore  "Sbort  Sijeg."    <y+ 

tions  might  have  been  summed  up  in  the  simple 
phrase  of  early  girlhood,  "So  there!" 

It  was  no  consolation  to  poor  Carmelita's 
feelings  that  her  little  private  tragedy  was  of  a 
most  business  -  like,  commonplace,  unromantic 
complexion.  It  only  made  her  more  disgusted 
with  herself  for  having  made  up  her  mind  to  do 
the  right  thing.  She  was  not  torn  from  her 
chosen  love  by  the  hands  of  cruel  parents.  Her 
parents  had  never  denied  her  anything  in  her  life, 
and  if  she  had  really  wanted  to  wed  a  bankrupt 
bashaw  with  three  tails  and  an  elephant's  head, 
she  could  have  had  her  will.  Nor  did  picturesque 
poverty  have  anything  to  do  with  the  situation. 
She  was  rich  and  so  was  Jack.  Nor  could  she 
rail  against  a  parental  code  of  morality  too  stern 
for  tender  hearts.  There  was  not  the  least  atom 
of  objection  to  Jack  in  any  respect.  He  was 
absolutely  as  nice  as  could  be  —  and,  unless  I  am 
greatly  misinformed,  a  good-looking  young  man, 
deeply  in  love,  can  be  very  nice  indeed. 

And  yet  there  was  no  doubt  in  Carmelita's 
mind  that  it  was  her  plain  duty  to  refuse  Jack. 
To  marry  him  would  mean  to  utterly  give  up 
and  throw  aside  a  plan  of  life,  which,  from  her 
earliest  childhood,  she  had  never  imagined  to  be 
capable  of  the  smallest  essential  alteration.  If  a 
man  who  had  devoted  his  whole  mind  and  soul 
to  the  business  of  manufacturing  overshoes  were 
suddenly  invited  to  become  a  salaried  poet  on 
a  popular  magazine,  he  could  not  regard  the 
proposed  change  of  profession  as  more  prepos 
terously  impossible  than  the  idea  of  marriage 
with  Jack  Hatterly  seemed  to  Miss  Carmelita 
Billington. 


2>ear  flfcrs.  JBflltngton.    ^ 

For  Miss  Billington  occupied  a  peculiar 
position.  She  was  the  Diana  of  a  small  but  highly 
prosperous  city  in  the  South-West;  a  city  which 
her  father  had  built  up  in  years  of  enterprising 
toil.  To  mention  the  town  of  Los  Brazos  to  any 
capitalist  in  the  land  was  to  call  up  the  name 
of  Billington,  the  brilliant  speculator  who,  ruined 
on  the  Boston  stock-market,  went  to  Texas  and 
absolutely  created  a  town  which  for  wealth, 
beauty  and  social  distinction  had  not  its  equal 
in  the  great  South-West.  It  was  colonized  with 
college  graduates  from  New  York,  Boston  and 
Philadelphia;  and,  in  Los  Brazos,  boys  who 
had  left  cane-rushes  and  campus  choruses  scarce 
ten  years  behind  them  had  fortunes  in  the  hun 
dred  thousands,  and  stood  high  in  public  places. 
As  the  daughter  of  the  founder  of  Los  Brazos, 
Miss  Billington's  fortunes  were  allied,  she  could 
not  but  feel,  to  the  place  of  her  birth.  There 
must  she  marry,  there  must  she  continue  the 
social  leadership  which  her  mother  was  only 
too  ready  to  lay  down.  The  Mayor  of  the 
town,  the  District  Attorney,  the  Supreme  Court 
Judge  and  the  Bishop  were  all  among  her  many 
suitors;  and  six  months  before  she  had  wished, 
being  a  natural-born  sport,  if  she  was  a  girl, 
that  they  would  only  get  together  and  shake 
dice  to  see  which  of  them  should  have  her. 
But  then  she  had  n't  come  East  and  met  Jack 
Hatterly. 

She  thought  of  the  first  day  she  had  seen 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  Jack,  and  she  wished 
now  that  she  had  never  been  seized  with  the 
fancy  to  gaze  on  the  great  water.  And  yet, 
what  a  glorious  day  that  was  !  How  grand 
217 


-?+   dfcore  "Sbort  Sijes."    v 

she  had  thought  the  ocean !  And  how  grand 
she  had  thought  Jack !  And  now  she  had  given 
him  up  forever,  that  model  of  manly  beauty  and 
audacity;  Jack  with  his  jokes  and  his  deviltries 
and  his  exhaustless  capacity  for  ever  new  and 
original  larks.  Was  it  absolutely  needful  ?  Her 
poor  little  soul  had  to  answer  itself  that  it  was. 
To  leave  Los  Brazos  and  the  great  house  with 


the  cool  quiet  court-yard  and  the  broad  veran 
dahs,  and  to  live  in  crowded,  noisy  New  York, 
where  she  knew  not  a  soul  except  Jack  —  to  be 
separated  from  those  two  good  fairies  who  lived 
only  to  gratify  her  slightest  wish  —  to  "go  back" 
on  Los  Brazos,  the  pride  of  the  Billingtons — no; 
it  was  impossible,  impossible!  She  must  stick 
to  her  post  and  make  her  choice  between  the 
Mayor  and  the  Judge  and  the  District  Attorney 
and  the  Bishop.  But  how  dull  and  serious  and 
business-like  they  all  seemed  to  her  now  that  she 
had  known  Jack  Hatterly,  the  first  man  she  had 
ever  met  with  a  well-developed  sense  of  humor! 
218 


^    /IRE  Dear  /Rbrs.  asillington.    ^ 

What  made  it  hardest  for  poor  Carmelita 
was,  perhaps,  that  fate  had  played  her  cruel 
pranks  ever  since  the  terrible  moment  of  her 
act  of  renunciation.  Thirty-six  hours  before,  at 
the  end  of  the  dance  in  the  great  hotel  parlors, 
Jack  had  proposed  to  her.  For  many  days 
she  had  known  what  was  coming,  and  what 
her  answer  must  be,  and  she  had  given  him  no 
chance  to  see  her  alone.  But  Jack  was  Jack, 
and  he  had  made  his  opportunity  for  himself, 
and  had  said  his  say  under  cover  of  the  con 
fusion  at  the  end  of  the  dance ;  and  she  had 
promised  to  give  him  his  answer  later,  and  she 
had  given  it,  after  a  sleepless  and  tearful  night; 
just  a  line  to  say  that  it  could  never,  never  be, 
and  that  he  must  not  ask  her  again.  And  it 
had  been  done  in  such  a  commonplace,  unro- 
mantic  way  that  she  hated  to  think  of  it  —  the 
meagre,  insufficient  little  note  handed  to  her 
maid  to  drop  in  the  common  letter-box  of  the 
hotel,  and  to,  lie  there  among  bills  and  circulars 
and  all  sorts  of  silly  every-day  correspondence, 
until  the  hotel-clerk  should  take  it  out  and  put 
it  in  Jack's  box.  She  had  passed  through  the 
office  a  little  later,  and  her  heart  had  sunk 
within  her  as  she  saw  his  morning's  mail  wait 
ing  for  him  in  its  pigeon-hole,  and  thought 
what  the  opening  of  it  would  bring  to  him. 

But  this  was  the  least  of  her  woe.  Later 
came  the  fishing  trip  on  the  crowded  cat-boat. 
She  had  fondly  hoped  that  he  would  have  the 
delicacy  to  excuse  himself  from  that  party  of 
pleasure;  but  no,  he  was  there,  and  doing  just 
as  she  had  asked '  him  to,  treating  her  as  if 
nothing  had  happened,  which  was  certainly  the 


<y   flfcore  "Sbort  Sijes."   ^ 

most  exasperating  thing  he  could  have  done. 
And  then,  to  crown  it  all,  they  had  been  caught 
in  a  storm;  and  had  not  only  been  put  in  serious 
danger,  which  Carmelita  did  not  mind  at  all, 
but  had  been  tossed  about  until  they  were  sore, 
and  drenched  with  water,  and  driven  into  the 
stuffy  little  hole  that  was  called  a  cabin,  to 
choke  and  swelter  and  bump  about  in  nauseated 


misery  for  two  mortal  hours,  with  the  spray  driv 
ing  in  through  the  gaping  hatches;  a  dozen  of 
them  in  all,  packed  together  in  there  in  the  ill- 
smelling  darkness.  And  so  it  was  no  wonder 
that,  after  a  second  night  of  utter  misery,  Miss 
Carmelita  Billington  felt  so  low  in  her  nerves 
that  she  was  quite  unable  to  withhold  her  tears  as 


•y    /fog  Dear  /Ifors.  JSillington.    -y 

she  sat  alone  and  thought  of  what  lay  behind  her 
and  before  her. 

She  had  been  sitting  alone  a  long  time 
when  she  heard  her  mother  come  up  the  stairs 
and  enter  her  own  room.  Mrs.  Billington  was  as 
stout  as  she  was  good-natured,  and  her  step  was 
not  that  of  a  light-weight.  An  irresistible  desire 
came,  to  the  girl  to  go  to  her  and  pour  out  her 
grief,  with  her  head  pillowed  on  that  broad  and 
kindly  bosom.  She  started  up  and  hurried  into 
the  little  parlor  that  separated  her  room  from  her 
mother's.  As  she  entered  the  room  at  one  door, 
Mr.  Jack  Hatterly  entered  through  the  door  open 
ing  into  the  corridor.  Then  Carmelita  lost  her 
breath  in  wonderment,  anger  and  dismay,  for 
Mr.  Jack  Hatterly  put  his  arm  around  her  waist, 
kissed  her  in  a  somewhat  casual  manner,  and 
then  the  door  of  her  mother's  room  opened  and 
her  mother  appeared;  and  instead  of  rebuking 
such  extraordinary  conduct,  assisted  Mr.  Hat 
terly  in  gently  thrusting  her  into  the  chamber  of 
the  elder  lady  with  the  kind  of  caressing  but 
steering  push  with  which  a  child  is  dismissed 
when  grown-ups  wish  to  talk  privately. 

"  Stay  in  there,  my  dear,  for  the  present ; 
Mr.  Hatterly  and  I  have  something  to  say  to 
each  other.  I  will  call  you  later." 

And  before  Carmelita  fairly  knew  what  had 
happened  to  her  she  found  herself  on  the  other 
side  of  the  door,  wondering  exactly  where  in 
sanity  had  broken  out  in  the  Billington  family. 

It  took  the  astonished  Miss  Billington  a 
couple  of  seconds  to  pull  herself  together,  and 
then  she  seized  the  handle  of  the  door  with  the 
full  intention  of  walking  indignantly  into  the 


•^f-   dfoore  "Sbort  Sijes."    ^ 

parlor  and  demanding  an  explanation.  But  she 
had  hardly  got  the  door  open  by  the  merest 
crack  when  the  discourse  of  Mr.  John  Hatterly 
paralyzed  her  as  thoroughly  as  had  his  previous 
actions. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Billington,"  he  was  saying, 
in  what  Carmelita  always  called  his  "  florid " 
voice,  "  I  thoroughly  understand  your  position, 
and  I  know  the  nature  of  the  ties  that  bind  Car 
melita  to  her  father's  home.  Had  I  known  of 
them  earlier,  I  might  have  avoided  an  association 
that  could  only  have  one  ending  for  me.  But  it 
is  not  for  myself  that  I  speak  now.  Perhaps  I 
have  been  unwise,  and  even  wrong;  but  what  is 


done  is  done,  and  I  know  now  that  she  loves  me 
as  she  could  love  no  other  man." 

"  Good  gracious ! "  said  Carmelita  to  herself, 
behind  the  door;  "how  does  he  know  that?" 

"Is  it  not  possible,  Mr.  Hatterly,  that  there 


•y    ffoy  SJear  flbrs.  ffiillinflton.    ^ 

is    some    misunderstanding  ? "    asked     Mrs.    Bil- 
lington. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Billington,"  said  Jack,  im 
pressively  ;  "  there  is  no  possible  misunderstand 
ing.  She  told  me  so  herself." 

Carmelita  opened  her  eyes  and  her  mouth, 
and  stood  as  one  petrified. 

"  Well,  if  I  ever  —  ! "  was  all  that  she 
whispered  to  herself,  in  the  obscurity  of  her 
mother's  room.  She  had  addressed  just  seven 
words  to  Jack  Hatterly  on  the  fishing  trip,  and 
five  of  these  were  "Apple  pie,  if  you  please;"  and 
the  other  two,  uttered '  later,  were  "  Not  very." 

"  But,  Mr.  Hatterly,"  persisted  Mrs.  Billing- 
ton,  "  whien  did  you  receive  this  assurance  of  my 
daughter's  feelings  ?  You  tell  me  that  you  spoke 
to  her  on  this  subject  only  the  night  before  last, 
and  I  am  sure  she  has  hardly  been  out  of  my 
sight  since." 

"  Yesterday,"  said  Jack,  in  his  calmest  and 
most  assured  tone;  "on  the  boat,  coming  home, 
during  the  squall." 

Miss  BILLINGTON  (behind  the  door,  aside). 
—  "The  shameless  wretch!  Why,  he  doesn't 
seem  even  to  know  that  he  's  lying!" 

"But,  Mr.  Hatterly,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Bil 
lington  ;  "  during  the  squall  we  were  all  in  the 
cabin,  and  you  were  outside,  steering!" 

"Certainly,"  said  Jack. 

"  Then  —  excuse  me,  Mr.  Hatterly  —  but 
how  could  my  daughter  have  conveyed  any  such 
intelligence  to  you  ?  " 

Miss  BILLINGTON  (as  before).  —  "What  is 
the  man  going  to  say  now?  He  must  be  per 
fectly  crazy ! " 

223 


<y    dfcore  "Sbort  Slice."    t^ 

Mr.  Hatterly  was  calm  and  imperturbecl. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Billington,"  he  responded, 
"  you  may  or  may  not  have  observed  a  small 
heart-shaped  aperture  in  each  door  or  hatch  of 
the  cabin,  exactly  opposite  the  steersman's  seat. 
It  was  through  one  of  these  apertures  that  your 
daughter  communicated  with  me.  Very  appro 
priate  shape,  I  must  say,  although  their  purpose 
is  simply  that  of  ventilation." 

"  It  was  very  little  ventilation  we  had  in 
that  awful  place,  Mr.  Hatterly !  "  interjected  Mrs. 
Billington,  remembering  those  hours  of  horror. 


"Very  little,  indeed,  my  dear  Mrs.  Billing 
ton,"  replied  Mr.  Hatterly,  in  an  apologetic  tone- 
"and  I  am  afraid  your  daughter  and  I,  between 
us,  were  responsible  for  some  of  your  discomfort. 
She  had  her  hand  through  the  port  ventilator 
about  half  the  time." 

Miss  BILLINGTON  (as  before).  —  "I  wonder 
the  man  is  n't  struck  dead,  sitting  there!  Of 


•^f    dfcg  S>ear  /ftrs.  ttfllington.    ^ 

all  the  wicked,  heartless  falsehoods  I  ever 
heard  —  ! " 

"And  may  I  ask,  Mr.  Hatterly,"  inquired 
Mrs.  Billington,  "what  my  daughter's  hand  was 
doing  through  the  ventilator?" 

'"  Pressing  mine,  God  bless  her ! "  responded 
Mr.  Hatterly,  unabashed. 

Miss  BILLINGTON,  (as  before,  but  conscious 
of  a  sttdden,  hideous  chill).  —  "Good  heavens  ! 
the  man  can't  be  lying;  he's  simply  mistaken." 

"I  see,  my  dear  Mrs.  Billington,"  said  Mr. 
Hatterly,  "that  I  shall  have  to  be  perfectly  frank 
with  you.  Such  passages  are  not  often  repeated, 
especially  to  a  parent;  but  under  the  circum 
stances  I  think  you  will  admit  that  I  have  no 
other  guarantee  of  my  good  faith  to  give  you. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  if  you  were  to  ask  your 
daughter  at  this  minute  about  her  feelings,  she 
would  think  she  ought  to  sacrifice  her  affection 
to  the  duty  that  she  thinks  is  laid  out  for  her 
in  a  distant  life.  Did  I  feel  that  she  could  ever 
have  any  happiness  in  following  that  path,  be 
lieve  me,  I  should  be  the  last  to  try  to  win  her 
from  it,  no  matter  what  might  be  my  own  lone 
liness  and  misery.  But  after  what  she  confided 
to  me  in  that  awful  hour  of  peril,  where,  in  the 
presence  of  imminent  death,  it  was  impossible 
for  her  to  conceal  or  repress  the  deepest  feelings 
of  her  heart,  I  should  be  doing  an  injustice  to 
her  as  well  as  to  myself,  and  even  to  you,  my 
dear  Mrs.  Billington — for  I  know  how  sincerely 
you  wish  her  happiness — if  I  were  to  let  any 
false  delicacy  keep  me  from  telling  you  what 
she  said  to  me."  Jack  Hatterly  could  talk  when 
he  got  going. 


"Sbort  Sijes."    V 

Miss  BILLINGTON,  ^  before,  but  hot,  noi 
cold).  —  "Now,  I  am  going  to  know  which  one 
of  those  girls  was  talking  to  him,  if  I  have  to 
stay  here  all  day." 

It  was  with  a  quavering  voice  that  Mrs. 
Billington  said : 

"  Under  the  circumstances,  Mr.  Hatterly,  I 
think  you  might  tell  me  all  she  said  —  all  — 
all  —  " 

Here  Mrs.  Billington  drew  herself  up  and 
spoke  with  a  certain  dignity.  "I  should  explain 
to  you,  Mr.  Hatterly,  that  during  the  return 
trip  I  was  not  feeling  entirely  well,  myself,  and  I 
probably  was  not  as  observant  as  I  should  have 
been  under  other  circumstances." 

Miss  BILLINGTON,  (as  before,  reflectively). 
—  "Poor  Ma!  She  was  so  sick  that  she  went 
to  sleep  with  her  head  on  my  feet.  I  believe 
it  was  that  Peterson  girl  who  was  nearest  the 
port  ventilator." 

Mr.  Hatterly's  tone  was  effusively  grateful. 
"I  knew  that  I  could  rely  upon  your  clear  sense, 
my  dear  Mrs.  Billington,"  he  said,  "as  well 
as  upon  your  kindness  of  heart.  Very  well, 
then  ;  the  first  thing  I  knew  as  I  sat  there  alone, 
steering,  almost  blinded  by  the  spray,  Carmelita 
slipped  her  hand  through  the  ventilator  and 
caught  mine  in  a  pressure  that  went  to  my 
heart." 

Miss  BILLINGTON  (as  before,  but  without 
stopping  to  reflect).  —  "If  I  find  out  the  girl  that 
did  that — " 

Mr.  Hatterly  went  on  with  warm  gratitude 
in  his  voice:  "And  let  me  add,  my  dear  Mrs. 
Billington,  that  every  single  time  I  luffed,  that 

22(> 


^    fl&S  Dear  flfcra.  ffiillfngton.    ~y 

dear  little  hand   came    out    and    touched    mine, 
to  inspire  me  with  strength  and  confidence. "t 
Miss   BILLINGTON   ( as  before,  with  decision). 

—  "I'll  cut  her  hand   off!" 

"And  in  the  lulls  of  the  storm,"  Mr.  Hat- 
terly  continued,  "she  said  to  me  what  nothing 
but  the  extremity  of  the  occasion  would  induce 
me  to  repeat,  my  dear  Mrs.  Billington;  'Jack,' 
she  said,  'I  am  yours,  I  am  all  yours,  and  yours 
forever.' " 

Miss  BILLINGTON  (as   before,  but  more  so). 

—  "That   was  n't   the   Peterson   girl.     That   was 
Mamie  Jackson,  for  I  have  known  of  her  saying 
it  twice  before." 

Mrs.  Billington  leaned  back  in  her  chair, 
and  fanned  herself  with  her  handkerchief. 

"  Oh,   Mr.   Hatterly !  "  she  cried. 

Mr.  Hatterly  leaned  forward  and  captured 
one  of  Mrs.  Billington's  hands,  while  she  covered 
her  eyes  with  the  other. 

"Call  me  Jack,"  he  said. 

"I  —  I  'm  afraid  I  shall  have  to,"  sobbed 
Mrs.  Billington. 

Miss  BILLINGTON  (as  before,  grimly). — 
"Mamie  Jackson's  mother  won't;  I  know  that  f" 

"And  then,"  Mr.  Hatterly  continued,  "she 
said  to  me,  'Jack,  1  am  glad  of  this  fate.  I  can 
speak  now  as  I  never  could  have  spoken  before.'" 

Miss  BILLINGTON  (as  before,  but  highly 
charged  with  electricity).  —  "Now  I  want  to 
know  what  she  did  say  when  she  spoke." 

Mr.  -Hatterly's  clear  and  fluent  voice  con 
tinued  to  report  the  interesting  conversation, 
while  Mrs.  Billington  sobbed  softly,  and  per 
mitted  her  kind  old  hand  to  be  fondled. 

16  227 


^   dfcore  "Sbort  Stjeg."    yr 

"'Jack,'  she  said,"  Mr.  Hatterly  went  on, 
" '  life  might  have  separated  us,  but  death 
unites  us.'  " 

Miss  BILLINGTON  ( as  before,  but  with 
clenched  hands  and  set  lips). —  "That  is  neither 
one  of  those  girls.  They  have  n't  got  the  sand. 
Whoever  it  is,  that  settles  it."  She  flung  open 
the  door  and  swept  into  the  room. 

"  Jack,"  she  said,  "  if  I  did  talk  any  such 
ridiculous,  absurd,  contemptible,  utterly  despic 
able  nonsense,  I  don't  choose  to  have  it  repeated. 
Mama,  dear,  you  know  we  can  see  a  great  deal 
of  each  other  if  you  can  only  make  Papa  come 
and  spend  the  Summer  here  by  the  sea,  and  we 
go  down  to  Los  Brazos  for  part  of  the  Winter." 


That  evening  Miss  Carmelita  Billington 
asked  her  Spanish  maid  if  she  had  dropped 
the  letter  addressed  to  Mr.  Hatterly  in  the 
letter-box.  The  Spanish  rnaid  went  through  a 
pleasing  dramatic  performance,  in  which  she 
first  assured  her  mistress  that  she  had ;  then  be 
came  aware  of  a  sudden  doubt;  hunted  through 
six  or  eight  pockets  which  were  not  in  her 
dress,  and  then  produced  the  crumpled  envelope 
unopened.  She  begged  ten  thousand  pardons ; 
she  cursed  herself  and  the  day  she  was  born, 
and  her  incapable  memory ;  and  expressed  a 
willingness  to  drown  herself,  which  might  have 
been  more  terrifying  had  she  ever  before  dis 
played  any  willingness  to  enter  into  intimate 
relations  with  water. 

Miss  Billington  treated  her  with  unusual 
indulgence. 


/Ifcg  Dear  flbrs.  ffitllington. 


"  It  's  all  right,  Concha,"  she  said ;  "  it 
did  n't  matter  in  the  least,  only  Mr.  Hatterly 
told  me  that  he  had  never  received  it,  and  so 
I  thought  I  'd  as-k  you." 

Then,  as  the  girl  was  leaving  the  room, 
Carmelita  called  her  back,  moved  by  a  sudden 
impulse. 

"Oh,  Concha!"  she  said;  "you  wanted 
one  of  those  shell  breast-pins,  did  n't  you? 
Here,  take  this  and  buy  yourself  one  ! "  and 
she  held  out  a  dollar-bill. 

When  she  reached 
her  own  room,  Concha 
put  the  dollar-bill  in 
a    gayly  -  painted 
little  box  on   top 
of    a    new     five- 
dollar     bill,     and 
hid      them     both 
under  her  prayer- 
book. 

"  WTomen,"  she 
said,    in     her    simple 

Spanish  way;  "women  are  pigs.  The  gentleman, 
he  gives  me  five  dollars,  only  that  I  put  the  letter 
in  my  pocket;  the  lady,  she  gets  the  gentleman, 
and  she  gives  me  one  dollar,  and  I  hasten  out 
of  the  room  that  she  shall  not  take  it  back. 
Women  —  women  are  pigs!" 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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